Despite 2011 being the UK's lowest year for wind installations since 2005 — only 403MW was installed onshore and 291MW offshore – wind farms managed to generate 15.53TWh of electricity, up from 10.18TWh in 2010.
Onshore wind generated 10.42TWh, up 45.9% from 7.14TWh in 2010. Offshore wind generated 5.11TWh in 2011, up 67.9% from 3.04TWh the previous year.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc), which published the data today , claimed the increase in generation was due to higher windspeeds in 2011 and increased capacity.
According to the Decc data, there was 4.63GW of installed onshore capacity at the end of 2011, and 1.34GW installed offshore capacity.
Total energy production in the UK was 136.6TWh, a record annual decrease of 13.6% blamed largely on falling oil and gas generation.
Renewable electricity generation was 34.75 TWh and increased its share of the overall energy mix by 2.5 percentage points on 2010 to a record 9.5%.
