Some good news on renewables – despite government policy.
Often when we talk about countries breaking renewable energy records, we focus on momentary spikes caused by exceptionally sunny or windy days. While these records are, in and of themselves, important—they still leave a bigger question hanging: How does the electricity grid cope when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing?
Electricity supply sources Q2 2015 (Image: UK gov)
What’s becoming increasingly clear, however, as countries integrate more renewable energy into their grids, is that clean energy can indeed supply a significant portion of our energy over an extended period of time. Indeed, new data from the UK government on Q2 electricity supply suggests that renewables beat out coal in the country’s electricity mix for the first time ever over an entire quarter. Specifically, renewables accounted for 25.3% of electricity generated in Q2 2015 (up from 16.7% in Q2 2014). Meanwhile coal fell from 28.2% to 20.5% in the same period. Gas remained the same. And nuclear fell slightly to 21.5%.
Read more: Treehugger