UK Power Manages 650 Coal-Free Hours

In the first quarter of this year Britain went for 650 hours without needing coal to meet electricity demands – more than the whole of 2017 – the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) said April 12, concluding the country was “on track to phase out coal-fired power generation entirely by 2025.”

Energy minister Claire Perry said that Britain had gone almost one month without coal to meet Britain's electricity needs – more than the whole of 2017 – "as we continue to seize the economic opportunities of moving to a greener, cleaner economy."     

Since the start of the year Great Britain – the UK minus Northern Ireland – has only used 2.8 TWh of coal-fired generation, compared with 8.3 TWh by this point in 2018 – a drop of almost two thirds. Since the start of February only 0.5 TWh of coal-fired power were generated, suggesting 2019 is on track to break all previous records, it said.

Beis said the government has put clean growth at the heart of the industrial strategy through the Clean Growth Grand Challenge. This will build on the transformation in the energy sector that has contributed to the whole of the UK cutting its emissions by 44% since 1990 while growing the economy by more than two thirds – the best performance on a per person basis of any G7 nation.  

The government's subsidies for renewable energy have helped low-carbon generation grow its market share, reaching a record 53% of UK-wide electricity generation in in 2018. However, that has not been without its side-effects, such as negative power prices caused by too much renewable generation.

Beis said the UK has invested more than £52bn ($68bn) in renewable energy in the UK since 2010, with £557mn more being made available for future clean electricity contracts. Last year renewable energy accounted for a third of UK power, up from 29.3% in 2017.