Q3 2024: The UK leads the world in phasing out coal power

On 30 September at 3 PM the UK’s last coal-fired power station, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, shut down for the last time. So ended 142 years of reliance on coal. This milestone makes the UK the first G7 nation to phase out coal power, and was reported around the world. We look at how the UK has phased out coal power, the impacts of its decline, and how soon other countries are expected to follow suit.

The end of coal power in the UK

Coal powered the industrial revolution. James Watts’ steam engine transformed the modern world, and London’s Holborn Viaduct became home to the world’s first coal power station in 1882. Since 1850, we have dug up and burned some 25 billion tonnes of coal, enough to cover the entire UK 3 inches deep. For more than a century, coal was the mainstay of the UK’s power system. But it was not until the Great Smog of 1952, which saw thousands killed by coal pollution, that we started to diversify the power mix. It took the next seventy years for coal to go from producing nearly 100% of electricity to zero.

The UK’s annual electricity production from coal over the past century.

Absolute demand for coal power did not peak until the 1980s, when production of North Sea gas started rapidly expanding. The ‘dash for gas’ meant that, for the first time, gas was not only cleaner but cheaper than coal, driving the first stage of coal’s decline. Progress stalled in the 2000s, but was kickstarted again in 2013, when the Energy Act blocked new coal plants from being built, and the carbon price floor rendered existing plants less competitive. Contracts for Differences (CfD) were introduced in 2014, increasing renewable capacity by 30 GW in the ten years since, and declining electricity demand reduced the need for generation, squeezing out coal further.

Cumulative CO2 emissions from the UK’s coal-fired power generation since 1920 stand at 9.8 GtCO2, a little under China’s total CO2 emissions last year. Retirement of coal plants is responsible for one-quarter of the reduction in UK power sector CO2 emissions since 2012. It also resulted in vast improvements in air quality. Compared with the Great Smog, sulphur dioxide and black smoke emissions in London are 100 times lower today. Fears of blackouts were commonplace when coal went into decline, yet the UK’s winter blackout risk is now the lowest in four years. Yet, coal phase-out also re-shaped communities, as jobs in mining towns and at local coal plants were lost to the incoming gas and renewable energy industries. While decarbonisation brings new and consistent job growth, retraining and restructuring are essential to ensure people are not ‘left behind’.

The coal phase-out league table

Among the world’s largest economies, the UK tops the league table for coal phase out. As of 2023, the UK had reduced coal-fired generation by 98% from its peak, compared to a 63% average across the G7 group of rich nations. The UK is now the 5th country in the world to have completely phased out coal power, and the first large country to do so.[1]

Some of Europe is close behind, seeing more than a 90% reduction in coal generation. The US has seen its coal generation fall by two-thirds since 2007. Even countries that are synonymous with coal, such as South Africa and Australia, are burning 25% less than at their peak.

The global coal phase-out league table: Electricity generation from coal in 2023 relative to peak in the 25 largest coal-consuming countries.

However, this progress is overshadowed by the six large countries still increasing their coal-fired generation. Coal’s share in the global electricity generation has dropped by just two percentage points over the past four decades. As global power demand continues to rise, total coal generation is higher than ever. China now produces more coal-fired electricity than the rest of the world combined, and was responsible for 95% of new coal power construction in 2023. Its coal generation stands at 5,754 TWh/yr, more than 20 times Britain’s total electricity demand. Similarly, coal power generation in India has doubled in the last 10 years, and is now three times that of the European Union.

Electricity generation from coal in China and the rest of the world combined, over the last forty years.

After 140 years, the UK becomes just the fifth nation to phase-out coal power, showing clearly how financial incentives and regulation can combine to drive rapid decarbonisation. While this is an important step forwards, the first global stocktake, the UN’s climate progress check, affirmed that the world is far off track from limiting warming to 1.5°C. At COP29, nations must build on the global pledge to ’phase-down’ coal power with a firm commitment and timeline for phasing-out coal power across the world.

[1] Austria, Belgium, Portugal, and Sweden have all phased out coal, but only produced at most 5-15 TWh of coal-fired electricity this century, much below the UK’s peak consumption.