UK smashes coal-free power record

The government may have faced criticism yesterday after publishing new projections showing it is on track to badly miss its medium term carbon targets, but Ministers today welcomed fresh evidence the UK's efforts to decarbonise the power system are continuing apace.

As the latest wave of School Climate Strikes kicked off across the country, the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) confirmed the UK completed 650 hours with no coal power on the grid during the first quarter of the year, marking a new record and surpassing the number of coal-free hours delivered during the whole of 2017.

The UK has delivered a string of coal-free days during the summer months in recent years, but the scale of coal-free generation during the winter months is a first for the country's grid.

The update also revealed that so far this year almost two thirds less coal has been used for electricity than was used by the end of April in 2018. Since the start of February only 0.5 Twh of coal has been used, suggesting 2019 is on track to break all previous records, BEIS said.

Energy and Clean Growth Minister, Claire Perry, said the results were a hugely encouraging milestone as the UK continues to work towards ending its reliance on coal power altogether.

"Coal is the most polluting fossil fuel, which is why we've committed to phasing it out entirely from our energy mix by 2025 as we help lead the world in the transition to cleaner technologies," she said in a statement. "This year we've already 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." 

The update follows a flurry of renewable energy generation records during the first quarter, as well as confirmation low-carbon generation provided a record 53 per cent of UK-wide electricity generation in 2018. It also comes just a week after National Grid reported that it expects to have the smart grid technologies necessary to periodically run a completely fossil fuel free grid in place as early as 2025.

Chancellor Philip Hammond is expected to highlight the UK's decarbonisation progress this weekend, as he prepares to attend the first meeting of the new Coalition of Finance Minister for Climate Action on the sidelines of the annual Spring Meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC.

However, the news also comes just a day after critics such as the Greens' Caroline Lucas branded the confirmation the UK's projected shortfall against its legally-binding carbon targets had widened as "a nail in the coffin for the Conservative's record on climate change".

Businesses and campaigners have repeatedly warned the government has exacerbated the danger of missing its emissions targets for the late 2020s and early 2030s, after scrapping or cutting a raft of green policies and failing to introduce sufficiently ambitious measures to cut emissions from transport, heat, industry, and agriculture.

The government insisted new measures were in the pipeline to try and close the 'emissions gap', while acknowledging that it faced an "uphill struggle" to decarbonise some sectors.

"We've made huge progress in cleaning up the power and waste sectors but we recognise the uphill challenge of cutting emissions further like transport, heat and industry," a BEIS spokeswoman said. "That's why we recently set out plans to significantly cut emissions from heavy industry, transition to low emission vehicles and reduce pollution through our Clean Air Strategy."