Clean energy landmark as last coal power plant closes

The UK’s last coal-fired power station shut down yesterday, drawing to a close Britain’s 142-year reliance on fossil fuels to produce electricity.

- ALEX DANIEL & STUTI MISHRA

Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station has been generating electricity since 1968 via its four coal-fired boilers, eight vast cooling towers and 199-metre tall chimney, which occupies a prominent spot in the East Midlands skyline.

It is able to power about 2 million homes and has been the last station of its kind in the UK since September 2023, when Northern Ireland’s Kilroot power station stopped producing electricity from coal.

Britain’s journey away from coal has been driven by a combination of decarbonisation targets and a dramatic rise in the viability and affordability of renewable energy.

“This is a British success story overseen by successive governments of different stripes,” Jess Ralston, head of energy at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) said. “There were those who warned of blackouts as coal disappeared from the power system, but their predictions of doom have been proven wrong again and again.”

Many of the 170 people employed by the plant’s owner, Uniper, will stay on to help with the two-year decommissioning process. Ratcliffe’s closure put a full stop to the country’s use of coal for electricity, which began with the Holborn Viaduct power station in London in 1882, the first of its type in the world.

Coal went on to play a major role in the national energy supply throughout the 20th century and accounted for about 80 per cent of UK power in 1990, falling to 39 per cent in 2012. Since then, 15 coal power plants closed or switched fuels and last year the fossil fuel made up just 1 per cent of the UK’s supply, according to data from National Grid’s electricity system operator.

Meanwhile, renewables, mainly wind and solar power, now make up more than half of the mix, according to government statistics. Gas has also played a part in the switch, rising from 28 per cent of the power mix in 2012 to 34 per cent last year.