Over the weekend on April 8th and 9th, many parts of the UK were experiencing the hottest days of the year with glorious sunshine raising temperatures as high as 25 degrees Celsius by Sunday afternoon. Unsurprisingly, solar PV systems up and down the country were busy capturing the rays to provide a record high contribution of 26.25% of the UK’s total energy demand during Sunday afternoon.
With wind speed increasing throughout the UK during the same afternoon, both solar and wind helped ‘intermittent’ renewables contribute a new maximum high of almost half of the UK’s energy demand by 3.30pm.
For the low carbon industry as a whole, an astonishing 71% of the UK’s energy demand at the above time was being sourced from low carbon generation; another record.
These records were set just three weeks after solar was responsible for a similar record by contributing to a lower day time demand than night time for electricity; the first time this has happened in the UK’s history.
It’s widely speculated that the UK is set to see a 3 month heat wave after Easter, which, if accompanied by large periods of sunshine, will see solar continue to generate and deliver a significant portion of the UK’s electricity and hopefully breaking even more records.