Another Milestone Reached for Solar Energy!

In the first five months of 2025, Great Britain’s solar energy has generated more electricity than ever before, with a 42% increase over the same period last year, thereby preventing the need for imported gas, a costly and polluting energy source.

From January to May 2024, solar farms and rooftops produced 5.4 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity. During the same period in 2025 that number reached 7.6 TWh, a 42% increase in a year, and a 160% increase in the past decade.

The generation of a record 7.6 TWh of solar energy circumvented the need for approximately 16 TWh of imported gas, saving $815 million and preventing the release of 6 million tons of carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. Solar power is Great Britain’s sixth-largest source of electricity in 2025, after gas with 37 TWh, wind with 33 TWh, imports with 18 TWh, nuclear with 15 TWh, and biomass with 8.0 TWh. The country’s goal is to reach at least 45 gigawatt (GW) by 2030 to decarbonise the power sector and become a clean-energy superpower. In less than a year, the recently appointed energy secretary, Ed Miliband, approved around 3GW of new solar capacity, including the 500-megawatt (MW) Heckington Fen and 500MW Gate Burton schemes.