Coal’s contribution to UK electricity generation fell to historic lows in the second quarter of this year, official government statistics have shown.
Fresh electricity generation stats, released by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy today, show that coal contributed just 0.6% of the UK’s power demand in the three months ended June 2019, as low carbon sources combined with gas to provide north of 95% of the country’s power.
The record low – equivalent to just 0.45TWh – was equivalent to a 62.3% slide year-on-year.
It will not have come as much of a surprise to market participants or analysts, however, as Q2 2019 was littered with lengthy runs without coal generation, going more than fortnight without it in May.
The official statistics are, however, a slight upgrade on what analyst firm EnAppSys forecasted in July this year.
BEIS’ official statistics place gas’ contribution at 43.6% and low carbon’s at 52.6%, the latter of which is down marginally on the back of planned nuclear outages.
Renewables’ meanwhile climbed to more than one-third of the country’s power to 35.5%, with offshore wind generation soaring more than 25% as new capacity came onstream.
Source: Current News