Britain is Set to Reach New Coal-free Milestone
At midnight today (Wednesday 10th June), Britain will have gone two full months without burning coal to generate power. This is partly due to the electricity demand plummeting after the lockdown was enforced. As a response, the National Grid started taking power plants off the network. No coal has been burnt for electricity since 9th April when the last coal generator was shut down. The figures apply to Britain only, as Northern Ireland is not on the National Grid.
The previous record was 18 days, 6 hours and 10 minutes which was set in June last year. A decade ago, about 40% of the country's electricity came from coal. Only 3% of the country's electricity came from wind and solar. Now, the UK has the biggest offshore wind industry in the world.