Plentiful but untapped source of renewable energy could have helped fill shortfall during record cloud cover

The 10 days of anti-cyclonic gloom at the start of November broke records for length and the thickness of the cloud. It is rare, even in the darkest days of December, for the solar panels on my roof in Bedfordshire to record less than a kilowatt hour of electricity production a day. During the gloom only 5.1kWh were produced.

Slow wind-speeds over the same period meant renewable energy made only a small contribution to the country’s electricity supply. The fossil fuel lobbyists made much of this shortfall, warning against the perils of the government aim of net zero.