More green energy being generated in Hartlepool

Figures from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy show 244,147 megawatts per hour (around 244 gigawatts) of renewable electricity were generated in Hartlepool in 2020.

This was 28% more energy than the 191 GWh produced the year before, and substantially more than the amount produced in 2014 – the earliest year of data available.

The biggest producer of energy in Hartlepool last year was plant biomass, which generated 57% of the total – followed by onshore wind farms (23%), and anaerobic digestion, which is the breakdown of organic material by micro-organisms to produce biogas, which generated a further 11%.

Nationally, 134,600 GWh of renewable energy was generated in 2020 – a 13% rise on the year before, and renewables outstripped fossil fuels for the first time last year, representing 43% of total generation.

Mike Childs, head of policy at the environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth, said: “Far too much of our energy still comes from climate-wrecking coal, gas and oil, and this has to change.

“The Government must rapidly accelerate our use of renewables to end our reliance on dirty fossil fuels.”

Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said wind power is a "British success story" and a key part of the Government's aim to decarbonise the UK’s whole electricity system by 2035.

He added: "This year alone we’ve attracted five new offshore wind factories to the UK, bringing jobs and investment to our industrial heartlands."