A surge in rooftop solar installations is highlighting the growing appetite for solar power across the UK, with tens of thousands of homes now generating their own electricity, according to the latest analysis from Drax Electric Insights.
The country has seen the busiest start to the year for home solar since 2012, as falling costs, policy reforms and record sunshine drive further uptake of solar power in households across the country.
Over 57,000 rooftop systems were installed in the first quarter of 2025 alone – the strongest start to the year for Solar PV since 2012, buoyed by the highest sunshine levels since records began. The Met Office confirmed that March and April were England’s sunniest ever back-to-back months, leading to a 40% year-on-year increase in solar power output.
Cumulative electricity production from solar PV over each year of the past decade – Output so far in 2025 has been 40% higher than any year on record.
“Solar is no longer a fringe green option, it’s becoming a mainstream energy source for the grid, and a long-term investment for households.” Said Dr Iain Staffell, lead author of the report and an associate professor in sustainable energy at Imperial College London.
“With energy prices still elevated and installation payback times falling to as little as 10 years, solar is certainly gaining traction, and this is being accelerated by regulatory tailwinds,” explains Dr Staffell.
“Changes to planning laws now mean many businesses and homeowners will be able to install rooftop panels without seeking permission, whilst proposals under the New Homes Bill could also make solar mandatory on all new-builds from 2027, which would further boost solar PV output.” He added.
Larger solar farms are also riding the wave, following a recent push by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) to fast-track approvals.
Perhaps more significantly for other forms of renewable energy – Ofgem’s new Connections Reform Package is starting to unlock the backlog of projects stuck in the grid queue.
The previous ‘first-come, first-serve’ system had allowed speculative schemes to block progress, leaving shovel-ready projects waiting years for a connection. The new ‘first-ready, first-connect’ rules enacted in April aim to cut these delays by up to seven years, prioritising projects that have planning consent, finance and land secured.
Ofgem estimates that the reforms could save £5 billion in grid reinforcement costs and better align new projects with the government’s target of 95% clean power by 2030.
However, the report warns that as renewables surge, the challenge may shift to managing oversupply. NESO expects demand could fall below 13.4 GW, forcing ‘negative reserve’ notices, where inflexible plants like nuclear must cut output to prevent the grid from overloading.
“More renewables on the UK grid are certainly a good thing if we are to try to obtain the ambitious goal of a clean energy grid by 2030.” Said Ian Kinnaird, FlexGen Assets Director at Drax.
“However, the UK it isn’t always windy, and despite the very good spell of weather we have experienced this year, it certainly isn’t always sunny. Flexible, dispatchable power will play an ever-increasing important role alongside storage and upgraded infrastructure if we are to achieve our clean energy goals, whilst maintaining security of supply.”
Drax recently announced plans to install around 1,500 solar panels at its historic Galloway and Lanark Hydro Schemes in Scotland. The panels will be fitted across the rooftops of the eight power stations that comprise the two schemes, providing the stations’ with their own auxiliary power needs. It’s estimated that the project could generate around 482 MWh of renewable electricity each year.
ENDS
Notes to editors
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About Electric Insights
- Electric Insights is commissioned by Drax and delivered by a team of independent academics from Imperial College London, facilitated by the college’s consultancy company – Imperial Consultants. The quarterly report analyses raw data made publicly available by National Grid and Elexon, which run the electricity and balancing market respectively, and Sheffield Solar.
- Electric Insights Quarterly focuses on supply and demand, prices, emissions, the performance of the various generation technologies and the network that connects them.
- The quarterly reports from the last four and a half years can be access at the new website electricinsights.co.uk alongside the interactive electricinsights.co.uk which provides data from 2009 until the present.
- You can embed Electric Insight’s live dashboard on your website or blog to keep track of what’s happening in the power grid through a new widget.
About Drax
Drax’s purpose is to enable a zero carbon, lower cost energy future. Our strategic aims are to be a global leader in both carbon removals and sustainable biomass pellet production, and to be a UK leader in dispatchable, renewable generation.
Our operations
Drax owns and operates a portfolio of flexible, low-carbon and renewable UK power assets – biomass, hydro, and pumped storage generation – which provide dispatchable power and system support services to the electricity grid.
We are the UK’s largest source of renewable power by output, and Drax Power Station is the UK’s largest single source of renewable electricity by output.
Through our pellet production facilities in North America, Drax is a leading integrated producer of sustainable biomass. Drax has 18 operational and development pellet production sites which will have a nameplate capacity of around 5.4 million tonnes once expansions are complete.
Drax supplies renewable electricity to UK industrial and commercial customers, offering a range of energy-related services including energy optimisation, as well as electric vehicle strategy and management.
Our future
Drax is progressing options for carbon removals using bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) technology globally and at our UK biomass power station. We are progressing plans to develop 7 million tonnes of carbon removals through BECCS by 2030.
In 2024, we launched Elimini, a US-based company to lead our global efforts to deliver carbon removals at scale. Elimini’s purpose is to remove carbon for good. To achieve this, it is convening engineers, environmentalists, communities, investors, and innovators to scale the market for carbon removals, with the aspiration of transforming our economies from carbon emitters to carbon removers. For more information, visit elimini.com.
Click here to read the full Q1 2025 report
