Britain’s last coal-fired power station to close after more than 100 years | Energy News

The UK’s transition to net zero is changing the country’s energy landscape.

Britain’s last coal-fired power station will shut down, ending 142 years of coal-fired power generation in the country that launched the Industrial Revolution.

The Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in central England will end its last shift at midnight on Monday after more than half a century of converting coal into electricity.

The UK government hailed the closure as a milestone in efforts to produce all of the UK’s energy from renewable sources by 2030.

Plant manager Peter O’Grady said it was “an emotional day”.

“When I began my career 36 years ago, none of us could have imagined a future without coal generation in our lifetime,” he told The Associated Press.

The shutdown makes Britain the first country in the Group of Seven major economies to phase out coal – although some other European countries, including Sweden and Belgium, have done so earlier.

British Energy Secretary Michael Shanks said the plant’s closure “marks the end of an era and coal workers can be rightly proud of the work that has powered our country for over 140 years. “As a country, we owe a debt of gratitude for generations.”

“The age of coal may be coming to an end, but a new era of good energy jobs for our country is just beginning,” he said.

The world’s first coal-fired power station, Thomas Edison’s Edison Electric Light Station, opened in London in 1882.

Ratcliffe-on-Soar railway station, which opened in 1967, is a landmark whose eight concrete cooling towers and 199 meter (653 ft) tall chimney are seen by millions of people every year as they drive past on the M1 motorway or speed past on trains.

In 1990, coal provided around 80 percent of Britain’s electricity. By 2012 it had fallen to 39 percent and by 2023 it was just 1 percent, according to figures from the National Grid. More than half of Britain’s electricity now comes from renewable sources such as wind and solar energy, with the rest coming from natural gas and nuclear energy.

But coal remains a combustible issue.

Plans to open Britain’s first new coal mine in 30 years in northwest England are dividing the population. Some welcome the prospect of well-paying jobs, others reject the pollution and carbon emissions that come with it.

However, the UK’s transition to net zero is changing the country’s industrial landscape.

Separately, Britain’s largest steelworks said on Monday it would stop production when the last blast furnace at Port Talbot in Wales closes after more than 100 years of steel production.

The closure of Port Talbot, once Europe’s largest steelworks, is the culmination of decades of decline in Britain’s steel industry, which has struggled to compete with cheap imports.

Almost 2,000 jobs will be lost as a result of the closure of the Indian company Tata Steel’s plant. Tata plans to replace the blast furnace, which runs on coal coke, with a cleaner electric furnace that emits less carbon and requires fewer workers.

At its peak in the 1960s, the Port Talbot steelworks employed more than 18,000 people before cheaper offerings from China and other countries came into production.

Community Union general secretary Roy Rickhuss said the closure “marks the end of an era, but this is not the end for Port Talbot.”

“We will never stop fighting for our steel industry and our communities in South Wales,” he said.