Between 12:30 and 13:00 on April 1, the UK set a new record of 12.2 GW of solar generation. The record came as the Met Office declared March 2025 the "sunniest March" since records began in 1910, with 185.8 hours of sunshine. The UK solar industry has taken full advantage – its installed capacity recently passed the 18 GW mark.
According to the Sheffield Solar Real-Time PV Tracker, whose data is used by the National Energy System Operator for forecasts, the UK came close to breaking the record on Sunday 30 March, when peak generation reached 11.9 GW. For reference, the peak generation on April 1, 2024 was 5.71 GW, while the full-year peak for 2024 is 11.5 GW on June 2. On April 1, the tracker showed that solar PV contributed a cumulative 87.6 GWh of renewable energy.
Although PV generation is affected by weather, in addition to utility-scale solar PV plants across the country that account for the majority of power generation, distributed generation (such as rooftop PV) also played a key role in this record, supported by strong installation data in 2024. The Microgeneration Certification Scheme, which is responsible for certifying renewable energy products and installers, recently revealed that 200,010 household PV installations and 22,667 household battery energy storage systems were installed in the UK between January 2024 and January 2025, which it attributed to falling costs. Solar Media Market Research pointed out that of the 2.3 GW of new solar installations in 2024, about 20% came from residential rooftop projects and another 20% from commercial rooftop projects.