Wind power Britain’s leading source of electricity in 2024

• 13 days ago (2025-01-08)
• David Flin

Europe 1096 Offshore wind 123 Wind 264

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According to the National Energy System Operator (NESO), wind power was Britain’s largest source of electricity in 2024, beating gas-fired plants for the first time.

Britain has around 16 GW of land-based wind power capacity, and 15 GW of offshore wind capacity. The Government plans to quadruple offshore wind capacity to 60 GW by 2030 as part of its plans to largely decarbonise the power sector by that date.

NESO said: “Wind was the largest source of electricity generation in 2024 for the first year ever, accounting for 30 per cent. Gas-fired plants accounted for 26.3 per cent of total electricity production, imports supplied 14.1 per cent, and nuclear power plants 14 per cent.”

Over the course of 2024, several clean power records were broken, including a maximum wind power capacity of 22 523 GW on 18 December, when wind contributed 68.3 per cent of the nation’s electricity.