Britain’s electricity grid has gone a full week without coal for the first time since the Industrial Revolution, the system operator has confirmed.
The new record – the first coal-free week since use of the fossil fuel for electricity began in the 19th century – was set at 1.24pm on Tuesday, a week after the last generator came off the system.
It comes just two years after Britain marked its first full day without coal, but National Grid Electricity System Operator director Fintan Slye predicted coal-free generation will become the “new normal”.
Read more: Tourism chiefs hit back at air tax U-turn
He said: “As more and more renewables come on to our energy system, coal-free runs like this are going to be a regular occurrence. We believe that by 2025 we will be able to fully operate Great Britain’s electricity system with zero carbon.
“Zero-carbon operation of the electricity system by 2025 means a fundamental change to how our system was designed to operate – integrating newer technologies right across the system – from large-scale offshore wind to domestic-scale solar panels to increased demand-side partici- pation, using new smart digital systems to manage and control the system in real time.”
Read more: Scotland's can and bottle deposit scheme hailed as 'blueprint' for UK
And he said: “Operating a zero-carbon electricity system in 2025, whenever there is sufficient renewable generation, is a major stepping stone to full decarbonisation of the entire electricity system.
“This will enable new technologies and removes barriers to ever increasing levels of renewables.”
Government figures show that renewables – wind, solar, bioenergy and hydropower – accounted for a record 27.5 per cent of electricity supplies in 2018.
Read more: Scottish Labour donor quits party and backs Ruth Davidson instead
Low-carbon generation, which also includes nuclear power, accounted for half of supplies (49.6%), a new record high for clean electricity.
Coal, which the Government has pledged to bring off the system by 2025, fell to new lows in 2018, accounting for just 6% of UK power supplies, while gas made up 43.9% of the supply mix, down from 44.8% in 2017.
Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark said: “Going a week without coal for the first time since the Industrial Revolution is a huge leap forward in our world-leading efforts to reduce emissions, but we’re not stopping there.”
Government advisers the Committee on Climate Change have outlined how the UK could and should reach net zero emissions by 2050.
The Scottish Government has also declared a climate emergency and moved to axe the likes of cuts to the airport departure tax in its wake.
Industry body RenewableUK’s deputy chief executive, Emma Pinchbeck, said: “Renewables overall are playing a leading role in our energy mix – and have been crucial to phasing out dirty coal.”
Greenpeace UK chief scientist Dr Doug Parr said: “Just a few years ago we were told Britain couldn’t possibly keep the lights on without burning coal. Now coal is quickly becoming an irrelevance.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel