The UK's Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said the country installed 268.39 MW new solar PV In 2018. The number of installations in December 2018 was 62% higher YoY with 3,720 systems deployed, which the department believes could be due to the impending closure of the country's feed-in-tariff (FIT) scheme in March 2019.
Yet 82.3% of system capacities were sub-4 kW level leading to a total installed capacity of 15.03 MW, a reduction of 5.8% compared to December 2017. The figures are provisional, it points out, since these can be revised upwards when more data regarding newly operational sites is collated.
Taking all this into account, at the end of December 2018, the UK had an installed cumulative solar power capacity of 13,096 MW from 976,197 installations, increasing from the previous year by 2.1%.
Large scale installations with more than 5 MW system capacity, a total of 469 in number, contribute to more than 5.9 GW or 45.2% to the cumulative till December 2018. 93.3% of all installations come from sub 4 kW range but these only cover 19.9% or 2,607.4 MW of total installed PV capacity in the country.
When looking at the development of renewables as a whole there's is at least some positive news – in November 2018 UK based energy company Drax said renewables exceeded fossil fuel generation for the first time in the country with 42 GW online in September 2018 and solar accounting for 13 GW (see Solar Accounts For 13 GW Renewable Capacity In UK).