Renewable energy in the U.K. may increase tenfold by 2030 if the country can improve its power grids and provide training to the workforce, the Department of Energy and Climate Change said.
Wind farms, solar panels and hydroelectricity could generate more than 197,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity in 2020 and 424,000 gigawatt-hours in 2030, compared with 50,000 gigawatt-hours last year, according to a study posted today on the agency's website. The U.K. produced a total of 354,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity from all sources in 2009, the most recent year of data.
The European Union has set a target of deriving 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, and Prime Minister David Cameron aims to make his government Britain's "greenest" ever.
"It is vital that our support for renewable electricity both encourages investment and represents value for money for consumers," Energy Minister Charles Hendry said today in an e- mailed statement.
If current constraints remain in place, the maximum possible renewable electricity generation capacity in the U.K. would be about 105,000 gigawatt-hours in 2020 and 220,000 in 2030, the report concluded. The government will use these findings to shape energy policy decisions from 2013 through 2017, the agency said.
