More 'Green' energy being generated in Sunderland

Figures from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy show 73,732 megawatts per hour (around 74 gigawatts) of renewable electricity were generated in Sunderland in 2020.

This was 12% more energy than the 66 GWh produced the year before, and 36% more than the amount produced in 2014 – the earliest year of data available.

The biggest producer of energy in Sunderland last year was onshore wind farms, which generated 51% of the total – followed by solar power (39%), and landfill gas, which is created by the decomposition of organic materials in a landfill – which generated a further 10%.

Environmental groups have urged the Government to expand on the success of a significant rise in green energy as the UN Cop26 climate talks take place in Glasgow.

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.