There are currently three active

coal-fired power station A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide, there are about 8,500 coal-fired power stations totaling over 2,000 gigawatts Nameplate capacity, capacity. They ...

s operating in the United Kingdom. They have a total generating capacity of 3.52GW.

Phase-out of coal in the United Kingdom

In November 2015, the UK Government announced that all the remaining fourteen coal-fired power stations would be closed by 2025. In November 2017 the UK Government co-founded the

Powering Past Coal Alliance The Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA) is a group of 166 countries, cities, regions and organisations aiming to accelerate the fossil-fuel phase out of coal-fired power stations, except the very few which have carbon capture and storage. It ha ...

. In June 2021, the government said it would end coal power by October 2024.

Ironbridge Ironbridge is a large village in the borough of Telford and Wrekin in Shropshire, England. Located on the bank of the River Severn, at the heart of the Ironbridge Gorge, it lies in the civil parish of The Gorge. Ironbridge developed beside, an ...

ceased operations in late 2015. In 2016, three power stations closed at

Rugeley Rugeley ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Cannock Chase District in Staffordshire, England. It lies on the north-eastern edge of Cannock Chase next to the River Trent; it is situated north of Lichfield, south-east of Stafford, nort ...

Ferrybridge Ferrybridge is a village in West Yorkshire, England. Ferrybridge lies at a historically important crossing of the River Aire which borders the North Yorkshire village of Brotherton. It is linked to other communities by the A1, which follows t ...

and Longannet.

Eggborough Eggborough is a village and civil parish, in the Selby District of North Yorkshire, England, close to the county borders with South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and the East Riding effectively making it the meeting point for all sides of Yorkshire ...

closed in 2018 and was granted consent to convert into a gas fired power station.

Lynemouth Lynemouth is a village in Northumberland, England, northeast of Ashington, close to the village of Ellington to the north west. It was built close to coal mines, including Lynemouth Colliery. Lynemouth and the surrounding industrial area fea ...

power station converted to

biomass Biomass is plant-based material used as a fuel for heat or electricity production. It can be in the form of wood, wood residues, energy crops, agricultural residues, and waste from industry, farms, and households. Some people use the terms bi ...

in 2018 and

Uskmouth Uskmouth ( cy, Aberwysg) is an area to the south of the city of Newport, South Wales. Location Uskmouth is effectively in the west of the village of Nash. It is at Uskmouth that the River Usk meets the Severn estuary. Amenities It includes ...

is being converted to an

energy from waste Waste-to-energy (WtE) or energy-from-waste (EfW) is the process of generating energy in the form of electricity and/or heat from the primary treatment of waste, or the processing of waste into a fuel source. WtE is a form of energy recovery. Mo ...

plant. Cottam and

Aberthaw Aberthaw ( cy, Aberddawan) is an area containing the villages of East Aberthaw and West Aberthaw, on the coast of South Wales about west of Barry. It is home to Aberthaw Cement Works, Aberthaw Lime Works, and Aberthaw Power Station, a coal power ...

shut down operations in 2019, Fiddlers Ferry closed in 2020 and Drax stopped burning coal in March 2021. The United Kingdom had continuously burned coal for the generation of

electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...

since the opening of

Holborn Viaduct power station Holborn Viaduct power station, named the Edison Electric Light Station, was the world's first coal-fired power station generating electricity for public use. It was built at number 57 Holborn Viaduct in central London, by Thomas Edison's Edison ...

in 1882. On 21 April 2017, for the first time since 1882, the GB grid had a 24-hour period without any generation from coal power. In May 2019 the GB grid went its first full week without any coal power. In May 2020 the GB grid beat the previous record and did not use coal generation for over a month. At present, the use of coal power is decreasing to historic lows not seen since before the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

. Coal supplied 1.6% of UK electricity in 2020, down from 30% in 2014. In 2020, coal produced 4.4 TWh of electricity and Britain went 5,202 hours free from coal electricity generation, up from 3,665 hours in 2019 and 1,856 in 2018.

List of active power stations

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:United Kingdom * Electric power generation in the United Kingdom Coal-fired power stations in the United Kingdom

Coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dea ...

Lists of coal-fired power stations

Phase-out of coal in the United Kingdom

List of active power stations

See also

References