UK’s PV capacity tops 12.8 GW

The U.K.’s installed solar PV capacity has reached 12.8 GW across 939,872 installations as of the end of January 2018, according to the latest provisional statistics released by the U.K. Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

In the month of January, new additions totaled around 9 MW. The BEIS notes, however, that the latest month’s figures should be taken as provisional, and that they will likely be revised upwards, as further data are received on newly operational sites.

A similar warning was made for the newly installed capacity in March 2017, as the numbers of completed projects ranging in size from 50 kW to 5 MW, which were developed under the country’s now expired Renewable Obligation Scheme, may further increase. As for now, March was last year’s month with the highest volume of new PV capacity, at 632 MW.

Overall, according to BEIS' provisional numbers, in 2017 around 954 MW of new PV systems were connected to the U.K. grid. In comparison, newly installed PV power in 2016 was 2.14 GW, while in 2015 and 2014, new additions totaled 4.2 GW and 2.49 GW, respectively.

Of the cumulative capacity, 1.48 GW comes in the form of large-scale PV plants over 25 MW, while solar facilities between 5 MW and 25 MW account for another 4.39 GW. Installations ranging between 50 kW and 5 MW have reached a combined power of 3.38 GW.

As for residential and commercial PV, solar power systems up to 4 kW comprise the largest share, at around 2.53 GW of installed capacity, followed by PV arrays between 10 kW and 50 kW (767 MW), and PV systems between 4 kW and 10 kW (216 MW).