New analysis from Friends of the Earth revealed that 374,900 hectares—totalling 2.9% of land in England—are suitable for new onshore wind and solar farms.
Researchers at Exeter University’s Environmental Intelligence Centre and Friends of the Earth identified 219,800 hectares of land considered most suitable for new onshore wind developments and 295,000 hectares with potential for new solar sites.
The analysis, which, among other factors, excluded national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONBs), higher-grade agricultural land, small developments, and heritage sites, found enough viable land to generate 130,421GWh of solar power and 95,542GWh of onshore wind.
In all, researchers identified potential onshore wind and solar PV farm sites totalling 213GW. Friends of the Earth said that, combined with offshore wind and rooftop PV generation, this would be is far in excess of even the estimated upper limit of 170.5GW renewable generation capacity needed by 2030 in a scenario modelled by National Grid, especially when added to offshore wind and rooftop PV capacity.
North Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and East Riding of Yorkshire are among the top areas with potential for new renewable energy projects.
Friends of the Earth estimated that the UK must double the amount of renewable electricity it produces over the next six years to help power the green transition and replace energy phased out from fossil fuels.
The research finds that if all the land identified were developed for onshore solar or wind, 2.5 times more electricity than currently required to power all households in England could be produced.
Tony Bosworth, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: “The current government’s track record on boosting our energy security through renewables is woefully inadequate and has left the UK lagging far behind in the global race to a zero-carbon economy. Meanwhile, Labour is looking increasingly shaky on climate after rolling back its planned investment in green growth.
“We urgently need our political leaders to pull their heads out of the sand and produce a strong, ambitious and fair new climate plan that lifts the barriers to onshore wind and solar power and secures investment in the infrastructure needed to support the switch to renewables.”
Supporting research
Several other organisations have released reports or surveys that highlight the inadequacies of the UK government’s actions regarding its net zero transition.
For example, the National Audit Office (NAO) released a report on the progress of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) on deploying heat pumps to decarbonise home heating.
The NAO said that DESNZ has become reliant on “optimistic assumptions about customer demand” to achieve the UK government’s ambition of 600,000 annual installations by 2028.
This ambition was first set in the government’s Heat and Buildings Strategy, published in October 2021, alongside the goal of ending the installation of new fossil fuel boilers by 2035.
The NAO report also mentioned that certain aspects of DESNZ’s plans to test the feasibility of hydrogen for home heating are behind schedule or have been cancelled, meaning there will be less evidence to make decisions in 2026 on the role of hydrogen.
This is evident from the fact that DESNZ is no longer proceeding with supporting a village trial that it originally planned for 2025 because there were issues with identifying a local hydrogen supply.
From an external perspective, the Canadian campaign group Greenpeace analysed the International Energy Agency (IEA) government energy spending tracker for 2020-2023 and found that the UK spends less on green endeavours than Germany, Italy, Spain, and France.
The country also comes out worst when looking at per-capita green energy spending, and it ranks worst for total spending on low carbon and efficient transport out of those countries, even though transport is the UK’s largest emitting sector for greenhouse gas emissions.
Italy spends over three and a half times as much as the UK on low-carbon and energy-efficient transport, at £37.4 billion, compared to the UK’s £10.2 billion, and Germany spends almost three times as much as the UK, at £29.8 billion.
France has a similar population size to the UK at 67.75 million compared to 67.33 million in the UK, but it spends almost twice as much on green projects as a whole at £746.82 per capita, to the UK’s £387.71 per capita.
