The United Kingdom has added 1 GW of solar capacity in the past 12 months, according to the latest figures from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). Deployment data for the end of October 2024 record 17.2 GW of total installed solar capacity across Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 903 MW of which was added in the calendar year.
DESNZ capacity figures are provisional on publication and likely to be revised upward as further data is received on newly operational sites. Based on existing DESNZ data, the pace of solar deployment in the United Kingdom in 2024 has slowed compared to 2023, when 1.18 GW of capacity had been added in the first ten months of the year.
The number of installations has also fallen compared to 2023 figures. There were 155,256 solar installations for the first 10 months of 2024, compared with 170,947 during the same period the previous year. A total of 196,790 solar installations came online in 2023, according to DESNZ figures, the second highest number on record for number of installations, but only the fifth highest year in capacity terms.
There is potential for yearly capacity additions to grow substantially in the United Kingdom, as more megawatt-scale projects enter the pipeline. Since July 2024, the UK government has granted development consent to four major projects with a combined capacity of around 2 GW.
More large-scale projects are seeking consent, too. Planning consent applications for Fenwick Solar Farm (237 MW), Springwell Solar Farm (800 MW) and Botley West Solar Farm (840 MW) were all made in November 2024.
A decision on whether the proposed 480 MW West Burton Solar project can go ahead, which was initially expected in November 2024, has been pushed back to January 2025.
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