Rainy UK gets more power from solar than coal for first time

Climate Progress

As the world hits ever-increasing records for heat and CO2 concentrations, sometimes it’s good to look at the bright side.

In May, for the first time ever, solar produced more electricity than coal in the United Kingdom.

During last month, coal generation fell to zero on several days — possibly the first time that has happened since the country introduced widespread electrification in the late 1800s, according to analysis from Carbon Brief, a U.K.-based energy tracker.

This is not a passing fad. Last fall, the U.K. announced it would phase out all of its coal-fired power plants by 2025. According to the most recent data, the electricity sector accounts for nearly a third of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. (That is similar to the rate in the United States.)

The news from the U.K. is not all good, though. The government plans on transitioning much of its generation to natural gas — which it intends to get by fracking large swaths of the country — and has recently cut subsidies to solar and made it more difficult to develop onshore wind power generation.