Wind, solar and nuclear power have each generated more electricity than coal and gas combined – for the first time ever in the UK.
The National Grid said the landmark was achieved at 1pm on Wednesday.
Wind supplied an estimated 9.5 gigawatts, nuclear provided 8.2 gigawatts and solar contributed 7.3 gigawatts, all ahead of gas on 7.2 gigawatts. There was no electricity from coal at that time.
Renewables alone – wind, solar, biomass and hydro – also set another record for generation, reaching about 18.7 gigawatts at the same time. This represented about 50.7 per cent of demand, and is enough to supply about 13.5 million homes with electricity.
#Renewables (wind, solar, biomass, hydro) breaking another record at 1pm today providing 18.7 GW (50.7% of demand) — NG Control Room (@NGControlRoom) June 7, 2017
In a message on Twitter, the National Grid said: “For the first time ever […] wind, nuclear and solar were all generating more than both gas and coal combined.”
However, at 8am on Thursday, gas was providing 43 per cent of the UK’s electricity, with nuclear supplying more than 24 per cent and wind on just over 11 per cent.
The rest was made up of imports (more than nine per cent), biomass (nearly six per cent), solar (three per cent) and storage (one per cent).
According to Aurora Energy Research, the landmark figures came after the UK experienced negative prices in the “day ahead” electricity market for the first time.
GB experiences negative prices in the day ahead market for the first time #wind #renewables #energytransition pic.twitter.com/YgGUKIEIVq — Aurora (@AuroraER_Oxford) June 7, 2017
It said large amounts of wind power and low demand saw generators paying energy companies to take electricity for a brief period in the early hours of the morning.
Negative prices may reduce bills, but they do not result in payouts to domestic customers, whose charges are based on longer term averages.
fish-fingered on June 8th, 2017 at 12:51 UTC »
Did you know?
Turning off a 20W bulb for one hour saves enough electricity to power a 20W bulb for one hour!
bathmlaster on June 8th, 2017 at 11:50 UTC »
One of the reasons for this occurred: there was no coal based generation happening at this time.
It sounds like they have been experimenting by turning off coal generation on select days since April 2017 to see how renewable sources will perform.
Still a surprising stat. Solar, wind, nuclear each generated more than gas generation, and those renewable provided more than 50% of demand. Again, this was a select day where they had turned off all coal generation.
2014 stats point out that coal usually accounts for 29.1 % of their generation.
jamiefoprez on June 8th, 2017 at 10:44 UTC »
Ok can someone please quickly tell me why this is wrong and not so impressive