Britain’s last coal-fired power station will close today in Ratcliffe-on-Soar, England. At the same time, Britain will become the first leading G7 industrial country to completely transition away from coal in electricity production.
The change has been rapid: as recently as the 1980s, no less than 70 percent of Britain’s electricity was produced with coal. In 2013, the share of coal had dropped to around 40 percent. Five years later, the share of coal electricity in electricity production was only five percent.
Britain’s goal is to make electricity production carbon-free by 2030 and the entire country carbon-neutral by 2050 at the latest.