The distributed power revolution

The energy story of our age has to be the growth of renewables from almost nowhere a few decades ago to the point where a fifth of UK electricity was generated from renewables last year. From a couple of solar PV panels on a house roof; a country estate with a heating system fuelled by its own forest thinning; a sewage treatment works generating power from waste biogases produced on-site; to large-scale wind farms; renewables are becoming both mainstream and a very significant part of the total energy picture.