Yet another story about capacity being added:
UK’s largest power-generating solar farm approved amid energy crisis | The Independent
https://share.google/s9q5uVodjxeRnawzm
The government has approved a solar energy project in Lincolnshire, poised to become the UK’s largest by power generation.
The Springwell Solar Farm, an 800-megawatt development, will feature battery storage and grid connection infrastructure in North Kesteven.
Developers claim it could power over 180,000 homes annually, equivalent to half the households across Lincolnshire.
Energy minister Michael Shanks said: “We are driving further and faster for clean homegrown power that we control to protect the British people and bring down bills for good.
“It is crucial we learn the lessons of the conflict in the Middle East – solar is one of the cheapest forms of power available and is how we get off the rollercoaster of international fossil fuel markets and secure our own energy independence.”
It comes alongside recent measures to roll out plug-in solar in UK stores, fitting solar on homes as standard and fast-tracking the next renewables auction to July this year."
Earlier this month, it was revealed renewables generated a record share of the UK’s electricity in 2025, according to provisional figures from the Energy Department (Desnz).
Springwell is the 25th nationally significant clean energy project approved by the Government since it came into office, which it says together will provide enough energy to power the equivalent of more than 12.5 million homes.
The data, released on Thursday, shows that output from renewable technologies such as wind and solar accounted for 52.5 per cent of electricity generation last year.
Together they generated 152.5 terrawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity – an increase of 5.7 per cent compared to 2024.
Desnz said the rise was driven by more renewables being rolled out across the UK, coupled with more favourable weather conditions.
The UK added 3.8 gigawatts (GW) of renewable capacity to the grid, bringing the total to 65.1 GW, up from 61.3 GW in 2024 and 9.3 GW in 2010, the figures show.
The thing I noticed about those numbers about growth in renewables, between 2024 to 2025 the increase was nearly 41% of the total capacity in 2010.
If anyone had predicted that level of growth in a single year for 15 years time a lot of people wouldn't have believed them, especially not if it was also said that royal capacity would be around 9 times the total.
Given the shift to EV's and heat pumps and generally the electrification of our energy, it's not impossible that I've the next 15 years we could see that repeat again, so total renewals being 9 times higher 0.55TW and an increase of 25GW.
To put that into perseverance here's what Google AI suggests is the total amount of energy used:
UK Total Energy Demand by Fuel Type (2024/2025 Estimates)
The final energy consumption by fuel type, based on 2024 data (published in 2025), is broken down as follows:
Oil (Petrol & Diesel): ~58.2 mtoe (~677 TWh with cars and vans accounting for around 400 TWh of this)— ~45.4%
Natural Gas: ~37.1 mtoe (~431 TWh) — ~29.0%
Electricity: ~23.4 mtoe (~272 TWh) — ~18.3%
Bioenergy, Heat, and Waste: ~8.5 mtoe (~99 TWh) — ~6.6%
Coal & Others: ~0.8 mtoe (~9 TWh) — ~0.6%
It also suggests that 43% of the above energy is imported.
That means that the total is 1,500 TWh, given renewables (excluding wood burning) was 103 TWh last year, a 9 fold increase to 2004 would be 927 TWh (61.8% of current energy use) it's would at first glance apear possible (although would require a lot of policy carrot and sick)
However, switching to EV's (possibly 95 of all cars) and ASHP (in the numbers required to hit that target) could actually reduce overall energy demand by 33% (including reduced refinery need and energy to transport oil and it's products).
As such 927 TWh out of a total of 1,000 TWh would almost certainly be impossible with current demand. Especially given aviation and marine fuel is likely to be hard to impact within that timeline.
There are a few things which could increase the total energy need
For example, potential at the lower end of total impact, we are likely to see population growth and demographic changes:
- a lower total number of children, as it's been reported that we've already passed peak primary school aged population, with secondary schools likely to see this hit them in the next few years
- quite significant increase in older people (total number and percentage of population), whilst they may not commute to work and typically do less driving some of them can have quite high energy use in the form of aviation travel, having large homes with a limited number of people in them and requiring the room temperature to be warmer (or if they are a widow or widower being able to set the room temperature higher than their other half would set it to) - as I've said not all, so there's could be some who's lifestyles mean that they reduce energy needs as they retire.
One which could potentially have a big impact on total energy use (especially if there's reliable times of negative energy costs) is green hydrogen production
Another factor which could see higher energy need is exporting energy to other countries if they shift to electrification of their energy use (industrial, EV's & ASHP) but don't manage to install as much green energy as fast.
