UK renewables hit record high in 2025

UK renewables set new records in 2025, but electricity generation from gas still rose as coal plants went offline, nuclear power declined and demand grew, analysis shows.

The assessment from climate and energy publication Carbon Brief shows electricity demand rose 1% – following years of declining demand – as more electric vehicles, heat pumps and data centres increased the need for power.

Carbon Brief said the increase hinted at a shift towards steadily rising electricity demand as the UK moves towards cleaner, electric technologies such as EVs and heat pumps for heating homes.

Renewables supplied more of the UK’s electricity than any other source of power, making up 47% of the total, outstripping gas at 28%, nuclear at 11% and net imports at 10%.

Wind, solar and biomass all set new records for electricity generation, and so did renewables overall – generating 152 terawatt hours (TWh) of power in 2025, up 6% from the previous year.

The lion’s share of power from renewables comes from wind, with an increase in turbines in operation seeing the technology set a new record for electricity generation, up 5% from the previous year.

Biomass was up 2%, while the sunniest year on record and solar capacity increasing nearly a fifth year-on-year led to a 31% surge in generation from solar power.

Wind generation set a new record of 23.8 gigawatts (GW) of power across Great Britain for half an hour on December 5, meeting more than half of demand (52%) at the time, while solar reached a record 14GW at 1pm on July 8, when it met 40% of demand.

The National Energy System Operator (Neso) also set a new record for the use of clean sources of electricity, with 97.7% of the British transmission grid coming from zero carbon power on April 1 2025 – though it missed its target of running the grid for at least 30 minutes without any fossil fuels in 2025.

Gas fills the gap

But gas-fired generation also rose slightly, up 5% on the previous year, as a result of nuclear power output reaching its lowest level in half a century as remaining plants faced maintenance outages and refuelling, while demand rose and net imports of electricity declined.

Last year was also the first full year the UK had no coal power on the system, after the last coal plant – at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Nottinghamshire – closed in September 2024 as the country completed its phase-out of the most polluting fossil fuel.

Carbon Brief said the changes to UK electricity supplies meant that efforts to decarbonise the grid stalled in 2025, with a 2% increase in the emissions per unit of electricity generation, a slight uptick on 2024 which was the “cleanest ever” for UK power.

Simon Evans, Carbon Brief senior policy editor, said: “The rise in gas even as renewables hit record highs shows the triple challenge of decarbonising the grid, while electrification boost demand and old nuclear power plants retire.

“If these challenges can be met, it will bring a cheaper, more secure and more efficient energy system overall, built on home-grown electricity supplies rather than imported fossil fuels.”

The analysis uses data from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and Neso.