Record Year for U.K. Wind Generation as Output Doubles Coal

(Bloomberg) -- Wind farms produced a record 15 percent of Britain’s electricity last year, helping damp emissions from power.

Wind generation was double the output of coal as new sites started and several storms swept through Britain, boosting turbine speeds by 5 percent compared with 2016, according to a report published by Imperial College London and Drax Plc. The U.K. power grid was free from coal for 618 hours last year, the equivalent of almost 26 days, it said.

“As the share of fossil fuels falls and more intermittent renewables come onto the system, we need to think about how we maintain stable, secure power supplies,” said Andy Koss, chief executive office of Drax Power. “We can expect more days without coal on the system as we gear up to the U.K. coming off coal in 2025.”

Facts from the report:

• 50 percent of Britain’s electricity came from low carbon sources, making it the greenest year for the nation’s power system; carbon emitted in the power sector fell 12 percent
• Power demand has fallen 11 percent since 2010 as generation from fossil fuels dropped 46 percent
  • Fossil-fuel generation fell for seventh year, to 140 terawatt-hours from 260 terawatt-hours in 2010
• Britain consumed 294 terawatt-hours of electricity via the grid

To contact the reporter on this story: Rachel Morison in London at rmorison@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net, Rob Verdonck

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