Official Statistics

DESNZ Public Attitudes Tracker: Renewable energy, Summer 2024, UK

Published 29 October 2024

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The DESNZ Public Attitudes Tracker is a nationally representative annual survey of adults (aged 16+) in the UK that tracks public awareness, attitudes and behaviours relating to the policies of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), such as energy and climate change.

This report provides a summary of the headline findings relating to renewable energy from the Summer 2024 wave of the Tracker, which ran from 11 July to 15 August.

Notes for interpretation of findings

Differences between groups are only reported where they are statistically significant at the 95% confidence interval level.

The annual personal income referred to in the report is a self-reported measure.

The age-related findings are reported using six age groups (16 to 24 years, 25 to 34 years, 35 to 44 years, 45 to 54 years, 55 to 64 years and those age 65 years and over). In some cases, findings across age groups have been combined to describe a general trend. In these situations, a range of the percentages for these combined age groups is provided for reference. For example, ‘Between 78% and 88% of people aged 45 and above’ refers to the range of percentages for the three age groups 45-54, 55-64 and 65+.

Support for renewable energy

In Summer 2024, 84% of people said they supported the use of renewable energy such as wind power, solar energy and biomass to provide electricity, fuel and heat (Figure 2.1). This figure remains unchanged since Spring 2023, and below the Autumn 2022 peak (88%). The proportion who strongly supported this (49%) also remained unchanged since Spring 2023, again below the peak of 56% in Autumn 2022. Overall opposition remained stable over the past year at just 3%.

Figure 2.1: Whether support use of renewable energy (based on all people), Autumn 2021 to Summer 2024

RENEWSUPPORT. The next question is about renewable energy. This includes a number of different forms of energy, such as wind power, solar energy and biomass. Do you support or oppose the use of renewable energy for providing our electricity, fuel and heat?

Base: All wave respondents – Autumn 2021 (5,558), Winter 2021 (3,705), Spring 2022 (4,373), Summer 2022 (4,489), Autumn 2022 (4,160), Winter 2022 (3,572), Spring 2023 (4,403), Summer 2023 (3,997), Winter 2023 (3,724), Spring 2024 (4,087), Summer 2024 (3,642) (Asked each wave)

While there was little difference in levels of overall support for renewable energy by age, those aged 65 and over were less likely to say they strongly support it (40%) compared with 49% to 57% of those in all age groups under 65.

By geography, strong support was highest in the South East (57%) and London (56%) and lowest in the West Midlands (41%) and the East Midlands (40%).

Further findings on renewable energy

In previous waves, questions were included on other topics relating to renewable energy. The latest findings relating to these topics can be found as follows:

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