England could produce 13 times more renewable energy, using less than 3 per cent of land, new analysis from Friends of the Earth and Exter University shows, and England can become a green energy superpower.

The UK needs a lot more renewable electricity, no one would dispute that, and a future scenario for the UK by the National Grid suggests that there is a need to double current levels by 2030, or an extra 10GW of new renewable capacity being developed each year, and potentially more if the transition to electric heating and electric vehicles is sped up.

In one scenario, offshore wind farms will be the backbone of electricity production, but they take time to build, typically a decade year, although that could be reduced to half that time, and at the moment, the UK is off-track to meet its target to more than triple offshore wind by 2030.

Therefore, for reasons of speed, more onshore wind generation will be required to meet the targets in the medium-term, and most of this will need to be built near to where the electricity grid already has spare capacity to use the addition energy. Onshore power can take less than a year to be implemented, and therefore a ‘quick fix’ by comparison.

Friends of the Earth worked with the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Environmental Intelligence based at the University of Exeter and identified 2,198 square km of land most suitable in England for onshore wind (1.7 per cent of all land) and 2,950 square km for solar farms (2.3 per cent of all land). with the theoretical potential to equal 95TWh of onshore wind energy and 130TWh of solar energy per year.

If this capacity was fully developed (although the abundance of offshore energy potential means not all would need top be) and if wind was prioritised above solar on sites that are suitable for both, this land would produce 13 times the current onshore wind and solar electricity generation across England.

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