The following provides information and analysis on the amount of electricity generated from renewable sources and is dis-aggregated from the UK level to local authority level, supplied by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
It includes information on capacity, generation and number of operational sites in County Durham.
Key Points:
- In 2020 it was estimated that over 134.6 million megawatt hours (MWh) – (see the definition below) – of electricity was generated from renewable energy sources in the UK, representing 43.1% of all electricity generation in 2020 ( BEIS: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/electricity-statistics), up from 33% in 2018,
- In County Durham nearly 500,000 MWh of electricity was generated from renewable sources in 2019, down from 512,800 MWh in 2020,
- The number of on-shore wind turbines in County Durham is low at 94 (2020), however, they produced 59.3% of the renewable electricity in 2020 in the county. This was equivalent to nearly 304,000 MWh,
- Plant biomass is the second largest contributor to renewable electricity production in the county providing 19.4% of the total electricity generated in 2020 from renewable sources (nearly 100,000 MWh),
- Photovoltaics are the most common form of renewable energy site in County Durham with over 8,815 sites and in 2020 and accounted for 98.6% of all renewable energy sites sites in the county. They have a capacity of 54.2 megawatts (MW) and in 2020 generated an estimated 53,100 MWh of electricity – 10.4% of the total .
Definition: A MW is equal to 1,000 kilowatts (kW). A megawatt-hour (MWh) is a unit of measure of electric energy. A MWh is 1,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh). An MWh is the amount of electricity generated by a one megawatt (MW) electric generator operating or producing electricity for one hour.
Further information on this topic can be found on the GOV.UK website and the interactive charts below give access to the time series data for County Durham.