Green Energy in 2026 – What To Expect
While we are not under the impression that everyone who installs solar or a heat pump do it for ecological reasons, we do know that’s a very welcome side effect of green energy.
80% of the customers we speak to are mainly looking to save money on their bills.
The good thing is, that comes with bumper CO2 reduction and less pollution!
We are inadvertently spearheading the green movement while reducing our outgoings at the same time.
That’s not just happening in people’s homes, it’s happening throughout the country’s infrastructure.
Accelerated Growth of Solar and Wind Power
You’ll have heard a lot of noise in the media about green tech and the UK’s electricity provision.
But the facts speak for themselves – over 50% of the UK’s energy came from renewable in 2024.
Now, that’s good news for the country, it’s good news for the environment and it’s going to be good news for everyone’s wallets.
Renewables are cheaper than gas, that’s a fact, and as soon as we drop the connection between gas and energy prices, we’ll all be better off.
The green tech that is keeping the lights on here in Britain is on and off-shore wind – though both commercial and domestic solar add a lot to the mix.
In 2024 renewables generated 143.7 terawatt hours TWh of energy whereas fossil fuels produced just 90.5TWh.
Don’t be fooled that 'renewables' just means wind and solar though, nuclear provided 14.25% of the UK’s electricity in 2024.
Breakthroughs in Energy Storage and Battery Technology
The evolution of battery storage, in both the domestic and utility market, has been nothing short of extraordinary.
In the domestic sector, the innovation in Lithium Ion batteries has meant more and more people utilise storage to reduce their bills.
The cost per kWh has dropped dramatically, and utility companies are now taking energy from people’s storage, so the benefits of owning batteries have increased dramatically over the last 2 years.
Some homes even opt for battery only systems, but we feel that’s missing a trick when solar panels are actually the cheapest part of an install.
In the utility market, there have been all sorts of innovations that have changed the way we look at energy storage.
In Scotland, the UK’s premier hydro battery is using water to store wind powered energy.
Basically, the energy produced by the wind farms is used to pump water uphill into a specially designed ‘loch’.
When that energy is needed, the water is realised and powers a hydro-electric turbine, pumping green energy out to homes all across the UK.
Elsewhere in Europe, sand batteries are being experimented with.
Once again, this type of system swaps one kind of energy for another kind of energy until it’s needed – in the case of ‘sand batteries’ this energy is heat.
Electricity is used to heat sand ... that sand retains the heat until it’s needed to boil water for traditional steam turbines.
Both brilliant ideas but obviously require too much space to be practical for the domestic market.
The Rise of Green Hydrogen as a Mainstream Fuel
This is the next big thing in green energy – hydrogen.
Hydrogen is the universe's most abundant element, with silicon coming a close second, so it’s easy to find everywhere.
The problem with it is, it’s very unstable and can easily ignite.
The boffins in the renewables sector have been working towards making it a usable fuel as, when it does react with Oxygen and ignite, the by-products is water – which is harmless to the environment.
Problem is, if it reacts in air, it can produce NO2s, or Nitrous Oxides – which is certainly not something we want getting into the atmosphere.
Cars are already coming online that use hydrogen as fuel and some companies are experimenting with supplying homes with hydrogen for heating.
It’s coming, but we still need things like solar and wind until we can fully utilise hydrogen.
Smarter Grids and AI-Driven Energy Management
The public are starting to experience a little bit of AI fatigue, and that’s understandable as it’s absolutely everywhere and, seemingly, in everything.
There is also an hidden problem with AI in that it takes a huge amount of energy to do its job.
However, when people get bored with creating substandard ‘art’ and endless paragraphs of incomprehensible writing, AI is going to be a very useful tool.
It's capacity for data analysis is incredible and it’s use in medicine, economics and computing is going to be invaluable.
It can also be used to regulate energy and increase the efficiency of the energy we all use.
Smart grids, controlled by AI, will learn who is using what and where.
This means we can eventually produce energy to order, reducing the need for storage and minimising waste.
We can take that AI idea into our homes too, using the same technology to regulate our personal energy use – reducing waste and, in turn, reducing our bills.
Decentralised Energy and the Growth of Microgrids
This could be a game changer.
More and more small communities are turning to producing their own electricity via small wind or solar farms.
This isn’t some idyllic idea for tiny villages in the remotest parts of the country, though that is a thing, it can also be inner-city apartment complexes, full streets or even boroughs.
Basically, a group of people get together and invest in small generation centres and distribute that energy to anyone who has invested in the scheme.
Local energy production for local people!
How Consumers Will Benefit from the Green Energy Transition
Despite what certain media outlets will tell you, green energy is much cheaper to produce than fossil fuel generation.
And, as mentioned earlier in this blog, our energy prices are directly liked to the price of gas – despite gas only accounting for 26-30% of the power produced every year.
With renewables, and remember that includes nuclear, regularly producing over 50% of the UK energy, that link to gas will have to be retired soon.
The more people that ‘go green’, the more chance we have of breaking that traditional link with gas.
So, in theory, bills will go down the more green energy we utilise.
On top of the saving, we all benefit from a less polluted world!
That seems like a no brainer to us, even if we all believed that the earth was getting on just fine with the current level of pollution, it’d still be great to have less rubbish in the air.
Studies have proved that lowering pollution in inner cities, via exclusion zones, electric cars and fines, has improved the public's health and reduced the need for people to visit their local doctor.
That’s something we can all get behind.
