Question

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what was their annual expenditure on financial grants, in the last year for which figures are available, for the installation of (1) wind turbines, (2) solar panels, and (3) hydro power generators; and what is their estimate of the total output of installations of each type.

The majority of renewable electricity generation is supported by two government schemes; the Renewables Obligation (RO) and (for smaller schemes) the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT).

Based on the number of Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) awarded and the buy-out price for each ROC, the table below shows the amount of support provided by the RO for the years 2013/14 and 2014/15:

This information is available from the Ofgem website.

The number of ROCs issued can be found in table 6.3 of the following link (copy attached):

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/energy-trends-section-6-renewables

Payments made under the FiT scheme are not available by technology, but the majority of deployment is solar photovoltaic. In 2013/14, the total payments for the scheme were £691 million [1]. This is available from the Feed-in-Tariff annual report:

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/docs/2014/12/feed-in_tariff_fit_annual_report_2013_2014.pdf

Annual generation statistics, irrespective of support mechanism are published in The Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES). The table below summarises the generation figures for wind, hydro, and solar photovoltaic on a calendar year basis:

Copies of DUKES are available from the House Libraries.

[1] The annual report for 2014/15 will be published in December 2015.