UK’s last coal-fired power plant to close after more than 100 years

Britain’s transition to net zero is changing the country’s energy landscape.

Britain’s last coal-fired power plant is shutting down, ending 142 years of coal-generated electricity in the nation that sparked the Industrial Revolution.

The Ratcliffe-on-Soar station in central England will finish its final shift at midnight on Monday after more than half a century of turning coal into power.

The United Kingdom’s government has hailed the closure as a milestone in efforts to generate all of Britain’s energy from renewable sources by 2030.

Plant manager Peter O’Grady said it was “an emotional day.”

“When I started my career 36 years ago, none of us imaged a future without coal generation in our lifetimes,” he told the Associated Press news agency.

The shutdown makes Britain the first country from the Group of Seven major economies to phase out coal — though some other European nations, including Sweden and Belgium, got there sooner.

UK Energy Minister Michael Shanks said the plant’s closure “marks the end of an era and coal workers can be rightly proud of their work powering our country for over 140 years. We owe generations a debt of gratitude as a country.”

“The era of coal might be ending, but a new age of good energy jobs for our country is just beginning,” he said.

The world’s first coal-fired electricity plant, Thomas Edison’s Edison Electric Light Station, opened in London in 1882.

The Ratcliffe-on-Soar station, which opened in 1967, is a landmark whose eight concrete cooling towers and 199-metre (653-foot) chimney are seen by millions of people a year as they drive past on the M1 motorway or speed by on trains.

In 1990, coal provided about 80 percent of Britain’s electricity. By 2012, it had fallen to 39 percent, and by 2023 it stood at just 1 percent, according to figures from the National Grid. More than half of Britain’s electricity now comes from renewable sources such as wind and solar power, and the rest from natural gas and nuclear energy.

But coal remains a combustible issue.

Plans to open Britain’s first new coal mine in 30 years in northwest England have divided residents, with some welcoming the promise of well-paid jobs and others opposing the pollution and carbon emissions it would bring.

However, Britain’s transition to net zero is changing the country’s industrial landscape.

Separately on Monday, the UK’s biggest steelworks also said it would end production when the final blast furnace at Port Talbot in Wales closes after more than 100 years of steelmaking.

The closure at Port Talbot, once the largest steelworks in Europe, is the culmination of decades of decline in Britain’s steel industry, which has struggled to compete with low-cost imports.

Almost 2,000 jobs are being lost with the shutdown at the plant, owned by India’s Tata Steel. Tata plans to replace the blast furnace, which runs on the coal derivative coke, with a cleaner electric furnace that will emit less carbon and require fewer workers.

At its 1960s peak, more than 18,000 people were employed at the Port Talbot steelworks, before cheaper offerings from China and other countries hit production.

Roy Rickhuss, general secretary of the Community union, said the closure “marks the end of an era, but this is not the end for Port Talbot.”

“We will never stop fighting for our steel industry and our communities in South Wales,” he said.