The country now has more than 650,000 solar installations, which can generate enough energy for about 1.5 million homes.
DECC said that overall UK solar PV capacity totaled 4,979MW at the end of December 2014, across 650,195 installations, an increase of 3.1% in capacity and 2.1% in installations compared to the end of November last year.
The Solar Trade Association said the statistics reveal stable growth in the industry and declining costs, which have mostly taken place in the large-scale sector.
Solar Trade Association CEO Paul Barwell said: "This milestone achievement is testament to the hard work of Britain’s several thousand solar businesses, almost of all of them small and medium sized companies, who are all at the forefront of a real solar transformation as the technology steadily becomes one of the cheapest sources of clean, home-grown power."
"Analysis has shown that solar is the most popular form of energy generation, and could provide 50,000 jobs by 2030 if given the right support."
The association is asking the government and all political parties to support its Solar Independence Plan, which will double solar proposals for little extra cost.
The DECC has recently unveiled that over 125,000 homes in the UK went solar in 2014.
A total of 700MW of capacity was installed on buildings and in ground-mounted solar farms due to the Feed in Tariff over the course of the year.
Image: The UK has installed about 5GW of solar energy panels in 2014. Photo: Courtesy of David Castillo Dominici/FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
