The UK Government has announced a drop in the share of electricity generated from all renewable sources of nearly 7 per cent.
Despite a year-on-year increase of nearly a third of onshore wind power generation, the total amount supplied in the first quarter of 2010 as part of all sources fell by 6.6 percent.
The large quarterly drop is mainly due to a fall off in the amount of green power generated from hydro technologies, which accounted for a 44 per cent decrease.
Coal power accounted for 31 per cent of the UK's energy mix, while gas-sourced electricity was 45 per cent. Nuclear power supplied 16.5 percent of the nation's energy needs, while renewables was just 6.2 percent.
However, the figures, which were released as part of the Department of Energy and Climate Change's quarterly Energy Statistics, shows that the year-on-year renewable capacity increased.
The report revealed electricity generation from all renewable sources in 2009 was 25,222 GWh, 17 per cent higher than in 2007.
Other headline figures, include:
* Total electricity generation from all renewable sources in 2009 was 25,222 GWh, 17 per cent higher than in 2007. Installed capacity for renewable generation reached 8 GW at the end of 2009, compared with 6.8 GW in 2008.
* Electricity generated from all renewables as a percentage of total UK electricity generation rose to 6.7 per cent in 2009 (using the international definition of renewables). In 2008 on the same basis it was it was 5.6 per cent.
* In 2009 the percentage of UK electricity sales that were from sources eligible for the Renewables Obligation (RO) was 6.6 per cent, up from 5.3 per cent in 2008.
* Generation from all biomass sources grew by 14½ per cent. Within this total, landfill gas, which comprises 47 per cent of biomass generation, increased by 4 per cent. Total biomass generation accounted for 44 per cent of all renewable electricity generation in 2009.
* Generation from onshore wind grew by 31 per cent; and generation from offshore wind grew by 33 per cent. Wind generation accounted for 37 per cent of total renewable electricity generation. Hydro generation increased by 2 per cent, and formed 21 per cent of the renewable electricity generation mix.
On the basis being used to measure progress towards the 2008 Renewable Energy Directive, which requires that the UK obtains 15 per cent of its final energy consumption from renewable sources by 2020, the percentage in 2009 reached 3.0 per cent, up from 2.4 per cent in 2008 and 1.8 per cent in 2007.
A full set of renewables statistics will appear in the Digest of United Kingdom Energy Statistics, which will be published on 29 July 2010.
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