Coal generation has dropped from providing 30% of our electricity at the beginning of 2015, to providing less than 7% in the last 6 months of 2016. Furthermore, renewables have overtaken coal in our electricity supply. This may have created headlines, but we need to understand what has replaced our coal power stations.
Coal generation has dropped from providing 30% of our electricity at the beginning of 2015, to providing less than 7% in the last 6 months of 2016. Furthermore, renewables have overtaken coal in our electricity supply. This may have created headlines, but we need to understand what has replaced our coal power stations. Is it renewables or gas?
In this blog, we see that although renewables are making an impressive contribution to our electricity, it is gas which has replaced coal.
The following chart allows us to understand this. It shows the percentage of electricity from different sources each month since January 2015. It excludes solar as I only have that data from January 2016.
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Gas and coal have, month on month, provided between 44% and 59% of our electricity. Nuclear has provided a fairly consistent 20% of our electricity and the rest is made up by renewables, imports and storage.
It is really clear in the above chart that the share of fossil fuels is fairly constant, but the share of that electricity is now gas not coal.
In January 2015, 40% of our fossil fuel electricity was gas. In December 2016, gas provided 80% our fossil fuel electricity.
Gas is replacing coal.
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According to the IPCC, gas generation is half as carbon intensive as coal. It reduces carbon emissions but dependance on gas alone will leave Britain well above emissions targets.
Clearly our electricity needs to accomodate more low carbon electricity to meet our carbon goals. That low carbon electricity looks to be likely to displace gas rather than coal in years to come.