Beyond Coal: the future of UK electricity supply

A quiet revolution took place in the first moments of this morning, probably while I was sleeping. You went to bed in one country and woke up in a completely different one.

The difference is largely invisible, but undeniably huge: yesterday the UK’s last coal-fired power station was still running, but this morning it’s not.

From today, for the first time in 142 years, the UK no longer generates electricity by burning coal. Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station near Nottingham began producing power from coal in 1967.

Its formal closure, one minute after midnight last night, was rightly described by Michael Lewis, chief executive of Uniper, which owns the factory, as “an extremely big deal – local, national and international”.

Chris Smith, who worked at the factory for 28 years, told the BBC “it’s a very sad moment” given that he and his colleagues had been “doing everything they could to keep the factory running” for so long.

For those of us who do not feel immediate local impacts, the plant closure represents a huge moment in our national history. As recently as 2010, coal provided just under 40 percent of the country’s electricity. As of today, that number is down to zero, after declining (some would say impressively) in recent years.

Instead, renewable energy now accounts for 40 to 50 percent of electricity generation. This shift from reliance on coal to a new reliance on renewable energy sources is understandably being hailed as a policy triumph and a world-leading environmental achievement.

But such celebration is premature.

Without a truly dramatic (expensive, controversial and complex) expansion of infrastructure and storage capacity to support renewable energy, we will remain vulnerable to its whims. As long as this remains the case, gas (especially imported gas) will play an increasingly important role.

We should also pursue a nuclear future with all the enthusiasm and zeal currently directed at wind energy.

The truth is that it is too early to tell whether the closure of Ratcliffe-on-Soar is evidence of policy success or simply a consequence of political choices.

There is a fine line between these two positions and for now we should acknowledge that while closure certainly marks the end of an era, it should not be seen as an end in itself.

Through the city AM

More top reads from Oilprice.co