The UK went for a massive 90 hours of completely coal-free energy generation over the Easter weekend.
The coal-free period started from Thursday night, continuing all the way to Monday Evening, ending in a total run of 90 hours 45 minutes. Demolishing the previous record of 76 hours, which was set at almost the same time the year before.
The four day Bank Holiday weekend with fantastic weather and sunshine, no doubt helping the UK go coal-free, with much of the population heading outside to enjoy the sun and overall energy demand falling. The total demand only rarely got above 30GW over the weekend, dipping as low as 21.1GW on the Monday morning.
Over the coal-free run, 42% came from Gas and 23% coming from Nuclear. Imported energy, Biomass and Large Hydro added 7%, 4% and 1%, a piece.
While clean renewables had a good weekend, with wind providing 12%. While solar, providing 11%, was close to its own level of peak generation at times, with Sunday afternoon output being at 9.11GW at 12.30pm, only just off its all-time peak generation record of 9.3GW. - Sheffield Solar.
In recent years coal has continued its downward trend, as more investment and attention has moved to cleaner, low carbon or renewable sources. In fact, The National Grid announced earlier this month that during the first quarter of 2019, the UK power supply had already beaten the number of coal-free hours that was seen in the whole of 2017!
The UK has already committed to shutting down all coal power stations by the year 2025, with 2 fully or partially closing this year.
The more coal-free hours and more stations that close each year the better. Furthermore, clean renewables percentage stake in total production is growing, although it is unfortunately still a relatively small amount at this moment.
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