The UK now has over 15GW of onshore wind capacity that is fully operational, with EDF Renewables UK’s West Benhar onshore wind farm in North Lanarkshire adding a capacity of 30.1MW.

Onshore wind capacity stands 15.002GW and represents significant progress since the UK’s first commercial wind farm, Delabole in Cornwall, opened in 1991 with a capacity of 4MW.

Onshore wind now provides 11 per cent of Britain’s electricity a year, and most of the UK’s onshore wind fleet is in Scotland with 9.4GW up and running, which is 63 per cent of the total onshore wind capacity. In England 3GW is fully operational.

According to RenewableUK’s UKWED dataset, there is now a total annual capacity of 30TW from UK onshore and offshore wind, with 2,631 onshore projects providing 15TW of capacity, and 44 offshore turbine projects having another 15TW. In annual terms this can generate 84TWh of energy.

RenewableUK's head of policy James Robottom said: "We welcome the Government’s announcement this week of the budget for this year’s auction for new clean energy projects. We're urging the Government to set an ambitious UK-wide target of 30GW of onshore wind by 2030, so that we can maximise the economic benefits of this technology throughout the country.”

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