Records were broken in 2025 as the UK’s combination of wind, solar and biomass power plants all set new records in 2025, Carbon Brief analysis shows, but electricity generation from gas still went up.
The rise in gas power was due to the end of UK coal generation in late 2024 and nuclear power hitting its lowest level in half a century, while electricity exports grew and imports fell. In addition, there was a 1% rise in UK electricity demand – after years of decline – as electric vehicles (EVs), heat pumps and data centres connected to the grid in larger numbers.
It was a record year for solar panels on rooftops, with about 250,000 new small-scale installations reported to the Microgeneration Certification Scheme.
Overall, the Carbon Brief analysis found that UK electricity became slightly more polluting last year, with each kilowatt hour linked to 126g of carbon dioxide (gCO2/kWh), up 2% from the record low of 124gCO2/kWh, set in 2024. The data also shows hints that a turning point for electricity demand may finally be taking place. UK demand increased by 4TWh (1%) to 322TWh last year, after a 1TWh rise in 2024. After declining for more than two decades since a peak in 2005, this is the first time in 20 years that UK demand has gone up for two years in a row.
In response to the renewables data, the BBC News web site reported that Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said: “After years of delay and underinvestment, this government is keeping its promise to take back control of Britain’s energy with clean home grown power.” This would “protect households against volatile fossil fuel markets”, he added.
But shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho called on the government to ditch its clean power target, arguing it was raising energy bills: “Britain is generating more renewable power than ever before, but people should know about the extra costs that come along with it,” she said.
This came at the same time as it was revealed by the Met Office that 2025 was both the warmest and sunniest year in the UK on record. Recording a mean temperature of 10.09°C, 2025 now joins 2022 and 2023 in the top three warmest years since 1884. It is an increasingly clear demonstration of the impacts of climate change on UK temperatures. This has been underpinned by a rapid attribution study by the Met Office, which shows that human-induced climate change has made the UK’s record-
breaking annual temperature of 2025 approximately 260 times more likely. It is also only the second year in this series where the UK’s annual mean temperature has exceeded 10.0°C.
But 2025 was also notable for rainfall, or lack of at times during the year, with the UK experiencing its driest spring since 1974. This shortfall has been eased by above average rainfall in recent months, with the UK’s annual total levelling out at 1041.2mm (90% of the average annual rainfall).
More from the Met Office’s study here.