Recent figures reveal that £5.2 billion worth of construction contracts for renewable energy projects were awarded in 2014, which includes a record amount of solar power projects, worth more than £1.7 billion.
The recent data from Barbour ABI, a sister company of Ecobuild and a chosen provider of construction data for the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the government, revealed that last year, renewable energy planning applications increased by 26% compared with 2013, continuing the trend of year on year growth in the sector.
The figures illustrated that solar energy projects had the biggest increase in approvals year on year in 2014, increasing by 59%. Furthermore, 611 solar farms with a value of more than £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.
While the total contract values for renewable wind projects increased by 23% year on year in 2014, 45% of renewable wind projects submitted for detail planning were refused at the planning stage, considerably higher than the average refusal rate of 12% across the construction sector.
