The present study shows that over the last year DECC has not been successful in addressing the overheating of the sector and that there is now 49 GW of consented capacity (21.2 GW built, 28.1 GW under or awaiting construction) and that the overshoot has grown very significantly, from 5% to 34% (37.7 TWh). [...] The scale of this prospective overshoot is all the more remarkable when it is recalled that the United Kingdom faced the largest incremental increase in renewable energy of any of the EU 27 countries, with the exception of Malta and Luxembourg, and that between 25% and 40% of the EU-wide costs of the target would fall on the United Kingdom alone.1 1 See the leaked briefing 2008 for ministers publi. [...] In assessing whether there is sufficient plant to meet this target, REF used the latest available monthly summary of DECC’s Renewable Energy Planning Database (REPD) dated April 2015 (published 15 May 2015), and calculated total capacities in each of the categories, Operational, Under Construction, Awaiting Construction, and Submitted to the planning system, for the technologies in the categories. [...] It can be seen that the 49 GW of consented capacity would generate 147.7 TWh of electrical energy, which is 34% in excess of the quantity required to meet the 2020 electricity target. [...] In conclusion, it is obvious that in spite of DECC’s attempts to cool the renewables sector, for example through early closure of the Renewables Obligation to solar, the industry continues to bring forward an oversupply of electricity projects for which there is no subsidy budget.
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- United Kingdom
