Clean Energy Transition
Clean Energy Transition Newsletter - June/July 2026
Britain continues to break clean power records in 2026
Households across the UK are going for solar power faster than ever:
- 269,000 solar installations were completed in 2025 – the highest total ever recorded in a calendar year and 37% larger than the year before
- 23,000 new solar installations in April 2026, with more than half installed on homes – showing households are turning to homegrown energy following the war in Iran
- 9 of the 10 strongest months for solar deployment on record have happened within the last year
Around 255,000 of the installations were rooftop solar - meaning at least 95% of all new solar was installed on homes, businesses and other buildings. This equates to a new rooftop solar installation every 2 minutes throughout 2025. The milestone follows the UK surpassing 2 million total solar installations for the first time in March 2026, across homes, communities and solar farms nationwide.
Link to Source: Government News
Solar panels could cut fuel-poor UK families’ energy bills by 24%
Poorer households could cut their energy bills by a quarter if solar panels were installed on their rooftops, according a recent report by the Resolution Foundation.
A successful rollout of the panels could lift 1.2 million people out of fuel poverty, as well as helping to decarbonise the UK’s electricity system.
Under the UK government’s updated Future Homes Standard, almost all new homes built in England from March 2028 will legally require on-site renewable energy generation, primarily solar panels.
The economists behind the Resolution Foundation research say that the government needs to offer means-tested grants or loans to cover upfront costs if people on low incomes are to benefit. The Government’s Warm Homes Plan includes a commitment to support roof-top solar in low-income households, with details expected soon.
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High gas prices – not climate policies - are chiefly responsible for high UK energy prices
In its 2025 review of UK energy policy, the UK’s foremost research body on energy, the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) says that high gas prices - not net zero climate policies - are responsible for most of the rise in household electricity bills since before the recent global energy crisis.
Annual electricity bills for typical households have risen by £169 in real terms between 2021 and 2025, after adjusting for inflation. Of this increase £112 (66%) was due to higher wholesale gas price, £28 (17%) to network costs, £22 (13%) to policy costs and 5% to other. (Note: This analysis does not account for the more recent surge in gas prices). This analysis does not account for the recent surge in wholesale gas prices).
A surge of new clean energy would therefore cut the nation’s exposure to gas price shocks.
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Increasing gas and oil production in the North Sea would make little difference to the UK’s energy security or fuel bills
The Iran war has triggered another fossil-fuel energy crisis, with surging global prices and increasing concerns over energy security prompting debate about the best way for the UK to strengthen energy independence . Renewable energy, alongside reduced energy demand, is increasingly recognised as a better longer-term solution than drilling new wells including because:
- New drilling would make no difference to bills in the UK as UK fossil fuel prices are set on international markets.
- The main reason why North Sea oil production is falling is that the North Sea is a “mature basin” i.e. most of the oil and gas it once contained has already been extracted and burned. It has been in decline for decades despite successive, strongly supportive governments.
- While significant North Sea oil resources do remain it takes on average an 28 years for new licenses to result in new oil and gas production, according to official figures. Plus depleted fields are more expensive to maintain and operate.
- Clean energy will cut UK reliance on gas imports by more than North Sea drilling: the UK would have needed to nearly double its liquefied natural gas (LNG imports) without wind and solar.
- Continued use of some oil and gas from the North Sea and elsewhere is still needed during the transition to net zero.
Links to Sources:
- Carbon Brief
- Carbon Brief
- Parliament report- https://post.parliament.uk/north-sea-oil-and-gas/
- North Sea Transition Authority
- CCC letter to Kwasi Kwarteng
Oxfam calls for a tax on rich fossil fuel corporations to help fund a fast and fair clean energy transition in the UK and overseas
Six of the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies — Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and TotalEnergies — are projected to earn $3,000 a second in profits in 2026, according to recent Oxfam research. That is an increase of $37 million a day compared to their 2025 profits.
Their projected profits of $94 billion in 2026 are enough to provide solar power for the energy needs of almost 50 million people in Africa. A large share of those profits flows directly to the wealthiest 1 percent — concentrated in the Global North. Yet rather than investing those profits in the transition, these corporations are doubling down on fossil fuels.
Oxfam is calling for: a Rich Polluter Profit Tax (RPPT) on fossil fuel corporations, and an Excess Profit Tax (EPT) across all other sectors which together could raise more than $1 trillion in their first year, which could fund vital investments to invest a fast and fair energy transition, tackle the climate crisis and poverty
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Globally, 57 Countries Agree to Transition Away from Fossil Fuels
57 countries recently agreed to undertake a fair and orderly transition away from fossil fuels at an international meeting in Santa Marta, Colombia, from April 24-29th
Europe represented 30% of the countries attending. The US did not attend. France presented a major step forward in its national climate plans by publishing its national roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels. The plan commits to ending coal use by 2030, oil by 2045 and gas for energy by 2050, as part of its broader goal to reach carbon neutrality. It consolidates existing measures – including a ban on gas boilers in new buildings from 2026 and a target for two-thirds of new cars to be electric by 2030 – while also reaffirming commitments to support the transition in other countries.
UK, Denmark, Ireland, France, Portugal and Colombia have all already ended new oil and gas extraction licenses.”
Inputs from the scientific community showed that the transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy is feasible and provided a menu of actions that governments can take forward.
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Most countries now have net zero (climate mitigation) targets
At least 140 of the world’s 198 countries now have net-zero – climate mitigation - targets aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
As a result at least 74% of global emissions are now covered by some kind of national net-zero target. Iran and the US are the only two of the world’s top 20 carbon dioxide (CO2) emitters that lack one.
34 nations – including the UK – have put their net-zero target into law. In addition, 63 nations have stated their goal in a policy document, 16 nations have made a net-zero “pledge” and 23 nations have a net-zero “proposal”
A number of nations - including Suriname in South America, Panama in Central America and Bhutan in south Asia - already remove more CO2 from the atmosphere than they emit each year including.-
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Dramatic decreases in the costs of large scale battery storage means that 24/7 Renewable Energy is now possible
Solar and wind have become the cheapest sources of new electricity generation worldwide, reliably delivering large volumes of clean energy over time. However, the fact that solar and wind power plants don’t generate electricity when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow has been used as an argument against clean energy by fossil fuel interests for a long time.
Now, a new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) indicates that dramatic decreases in the cost of large-scale battery storage will overcome their intermittency heralding the possibility of 24/7 clean energy.
The costs of a typical utility scale battery has fallen by well over half since 2022 and by 27 percent last year alone. This means that projects combining solar and wind - with battery storage – can provide 24 hour power at prices that are competitive with – and in many cases cheaper than – fossil fuel generation.
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Reduced emissions from wind and solar means that worst case climate projection will be avoided
Revised modelling by some of the world’s top climate scientists shows that worst-case projections for global warming of 4.5 degrees centigrade are no longer regarded as plausible due to the plummeting cost of cheap solar and wind reducing emissions.
However, the upper limit of 3.5 degrees global warming is still be far over the 2°C limit agreed by countries in the 2015 Paris Agreement and if reached would bring disastrous consequences for the planet. The clean energy transition must therefore be urgently accelerated.
The modelling – which predicts worse case and milder scenarios - rests on a number of assumptions about climate sensitivity and takes into account the world’s future population, energy use, energy sources, investment in climate change adaptation and mitigation, climate policies, and collaboration between nations.
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Trump’s attempt to crush clean energy progress is not going to plan
In March, the US generated more of its electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind than it did from gas. Electricity from low carbon sources surpassed fossil fuel generation, according to the Ember thinktank.
While this was just one month, the pipeline of new power coming online in the US is overwhelmingly green this year, too, with 93% of all electricity capacity added in 2026 set to come from solar, wind and batteries according to the US Energy Information Administration. Just 7% will come from the fossil fuels
This is attributed to a number of factors including: a Federal Court blocking Trumps attempts to block solar and wind projects on federal land; the resumption of five major offshore wind farms; and an irreversible market tipping point with renewables cheaper and quicker to construct than gas and coal plants. The president’s chief pollster in February found more than two-thirds of Republican voters support solar and wind projects on federal land, though the fossil fuel industry still has a major influence over the Federal Government.
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The Clean Energy Transition Newsletter is produced by Ruth Mayne, Phil Bloomer and Chris Church with support from a small expert review group and Friends of the Earth Oxfordshire.
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