Renewable sector goes on growing with £5.2 billion worth of contracts in 2014
3rd March 2015

Some £5.2 billion of construction contracts – for 1,095 renewable energy projects – were awarded in 2014, including a record volume of over £1.7 billion of solar power projects, according to figures released this week.

The data, from Barbour ABI, show that last year renewable energy planning applications increased by 26% against 2013, continuing the trend of year-on-year growth in the sector. While the renewable sector benefited from high levels of investment in 2014, 45% (409 projects) of renewable wind projects submitted for detail planning were refused at the planning stage – considerably higher than the average refusal rate of 12 per cent across the construction sector.

The figures also show that solar energy projects had the biggest increase in approvals year on year in 2014 – up 59 per cent. Furthermore, 611 solar farms with a value of over £100,000 were submitted for planning in 2014, compared to only three solar farms in 2010, showing rapid growth for this sector over the last five years. Additionally the total contract values for renewable wind projects increased by 23 per cent year on year in 2014.

Michael Dall, lead economist at Barbour ABI said: “Looking across the construction industry as a whole, for wind projects refusals to be running at 45 per cent demonstrates there is clearly difficulties that likely range from the size and scope of the projects to public objections. On the flipside, wind projects contributed to 44 per cent (£2.27 billion) of the total amount of contracts awarded for renewable energy last year, boosted by many large-scale projects such as the £105 million Corriegarth and £52.5 million Millennium South wind farms.

“The value of the 409 wind projects refused planning permission in 2014 totalled a planned spend of £1.58 billion, a significant figure to the construction industry. Alongside the increased importance of renewable projects to the UK energy sector, more may need to be done to look at reducing the refusal percentage of wind projects.” Barbour ABI is part of global events-led marketing services and communications company, UBM, and is headquartered in Cheshire Oaks, Cheshire.

Barbour ABI is a sister company of Ecobuild and a chosen provider of construction data for the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Government, show that last year renewable energy.