{"id":2626,"date":"2026-02-18T13:13:37","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T13:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/?p=2626"},"modified":"2026-02-18T13:13:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T13:13:38","slug":"capacity-and-production-statistics-34","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/?p=2626","title":{"rendered":"Capacity and production statistics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Britain installed 2.6 GW of new solar PV capacity in 2025, the fastest build rate in over a decade. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pv-magazine.com\/2026\/01\/29\/uk-added-2-6-gw-of-solar-in-2025-record-year-for-rooftop\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Several large solar farms were commissioned<\/a> enabled by more supportive planning rules. <a href=\"https:\/\/mcsfoundation.org.uk\/news\/best-start-to-a-year-for-rooftop-solar-panel-installations-in-more-than-a-decade\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Rooftop solar has also taken off<\/a> as panel costs fell dramatically, and new-build homes are increasingly arriving \u201csolar-ready\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By contrast, wind farm deployment is sluggish. Capacity increased by 1.1 GW during 2025, the weakest growth since 2022, and the third year in a row of falling build rates. Offshore wind is still feeling the effects of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/sustainability\/climate-energy\/offshore-wind-developer-orsted-q1-beats-forecasts-2025-05-07\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">higher financing costs and supply-chain disruption. Onshore wind is facing even more of a lull<\/a>, with only 0.1 GW of net growth during 2025. England\u2019s planning rules for new wind farms were relaxed in mid-2024, but policy changes take time to translate into turbines being built.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Britain\u2019s electricity supply mix in the fourth quarter of 2025.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"493\" src=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WEL_Drax_EIQ_2025_Q1_Graph_07-1024x493.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2627\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WEL_Drax_EIQ_2025_Q1_Graph_07-1024x493.png 1024w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WEL_Drax_EIQ_2025_Q1_Graph_07-300x144.png 300w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WEL_Drax_EIQ_2025_Q1_Graph_07-768x370.png 768w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WEL_Drax_EIQ_2025_Q1_Graph_07-1536x739.png 1536w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WEL_Drax_EIQ_2025_Q1_Graph_07-2048x986.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The generation mix during Quarter 4 was greener than ever, with carbon emissions down 15% year-on-year. Every renewable energy source increased output, with wind, solar and hydro all rising by more than 20%, and biomass output up 6%. Nuclear and gas output both fell by more than a tenth, while electricity exports almost doubled year-on-year, helped by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgrid.com\/media-centre\/press-releases\/greenlink-interconnector-live-connecting-national-grid-and-eirgrid-networks\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">the Greenlink interconnector<\/a> that has increased capacity between Wales and Ireland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Installed capacity and electricity produced by each technology. [1,2<\/em><\/strong>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"463\" src=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WEL_Drax_EIQ_2025_Q1_Graph_08-1024x463.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2628\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WEL_Drax_EIQ_2025_Q1_Graph_08-1024x463.png 1024w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WEL_Drax_EIQ_2025_Q1_Graph_08-300x136.png 300w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WEL_Drax_EIQ_2025_Q1_Graph_08-768x347.png 768w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WEL_Drax_EIQ_2025_Q1_Graph_08-1536x695.png 1536w, https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/WEL_Drax_EIQ_2025_Q1_Graph_08-2048x926.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>1 Other sources give different values because of the types of plant they consider. For example, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/collections\/energy-trends\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Energy Trends<\/a> records an additional 0.7 GW of hydro, 0.6 GW of biomass and 3 GW of waste-to-energy plants. These plants and their output are not visible to the electricity transmission system and so cannot be reported on here.<br>2 We include an estimate of the installed capacity of smaller storage devices which are not monitored by the electricity market operator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Britain installed 2.6 GW of new solar PV capacity in 2025, the fastest build rate in over a decade. Several large solar farms were commissioned enabled by more supportive planning rules. Rooftop solar has also taken off as panel costs fell dramatically, and new-build homes are increasingly arriving \u201csolar-ready\u201d. By contrast, wind farm deployment is sluggish. Capacity increased by 1.1 [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":2674,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[41,68],"class_list":["post-2626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-q4-2025","tag-electric-insights","tag-q4-2025"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2626"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2666,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2626\/revisions\/2666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reports.electricinsights.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}