Renewables are smashing records in the UK, halting fossil fuel price shocks from Iran war

Last month, the UK government approved the Springwell Solar Farm, which is poised to become the country’s largest solar energy project. The solar farm will generate 800 MW of electricity, enough to power more than 180,000 homes per year.

The Springwell solar farm is the 25th major clean energy project approved by the Labour government since it came into office. And the government has estimated that all these clean energy projects will provide enough energy to power the equivalent of more than 12.5 million homes in the UK.

Four years on from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine we are again seeing what it means to be in the grip of volatile fossil fuel markets we do not control.

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.

This is how we get bills down for good and protect everyone from fossil fuel price shocks.

— Michael Shanks, UK energy minister, said in a statement when the Springwell Solar farm project was approved by the government.

No matter what some say, politics do matter. Thanks to political decisions, renewables generated a record share of the UK’s electricity in 2025, new data from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has shown.

Renewable energy technologies like wind and solar accounted for 52.5 percent of electricity generation in the UK last year. All in all, renewables generated 152.5 TWh of electricity in 2025—an increase of 5.7 percent compared to the previous year. The UK added 3.8 GW of renewable capacity to the national grid last year, bringing the total to 65.1 GW of renewable energy capacity, which can be compared to the meagre 9.3 GW renewable energy capacity the country had back in 2010.

Two years ago, when the Labour government came to power, they promised to remove almost all fossil fuels from the UK’s electricity grid by 2030. They argued that such a climate measure would reduce energy bills for Britons, generate economic growth for the country, and boost energy security. Now, when we’re in the middle of another illegal war in the Middle East, we can all clearly see that this was the right call.

In fact, a new analysis by Carbon Brief has shown that record electricity generation from wind and solar power has saved the UK £1.7 billion in gas imports since the start of the Iran war. It shows that wind and solar have generated more than twice as much electricity as fossil fuels since the end of February when the Iran war began, and that they’ve done so for a record 15 months in a row. “The country’s electricity mix has now flipped: a decade ago, fossil fuels were generating more than four times as much electricity as wind and solar,” the analysis concludes.

And just like in Spain, increased renewable energy production is starting to break the link between gas and electricity prices in the UK. Gas generation was down 25 percent year-on-year in March and 34 percent last month. Both months saw record-low gas output. If this positive trend continues, it will result in significantly lower electricity prices—something that’ll make a real difference for people in a country that has among the highest electricity prices in the world.

These figures show renewables are now the backbone of Britain’s power system, supplying most of our electricity for the second year running, with wind doing the heavy lifting. That matters for bills, because low‑cost renewables reduce our reliance on gas, which still sets electricity prices most of the time and is vulnerable to spikes.

— Tara Singh, CEO of RenewableUK said in a comment to the new energy data from DESNZ.

These renewable records are also impacting the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. Statistics from DESNZ published last month show that the UK’s territorial greenhouse gas emissions (i.e., emissions that are solely produced within the country’s borders) decreased by 1.8 percent last year compared to 2024 and were down by 53.6 percent on 1990 levels. The closure of the UK’s last coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar back in September 2024 certainly helped push those numbers. But while industry and electricity supply emissions are falling, domestic transport sector emissions increased by 2.2 percent in 2025.

This shows that increased efforts are still needed and that there are massive gains—both for the climate and the economy—to be made in electrifying and decarbonizing our societies.