The electricity needed to power household appliances, industries and buildings was not produced from coal but from renewables for an entire week. It is the first time this has happened since the industrial revolution.
It happened in the first week of May, precisely from 1 May at 13:24. From that moment on, the coal-fired power stations in the United Kingdom were shut down for a full week. For the first time since one of the first furnaces was lit near Holborn, in London, and Queen Victoria reigned over the entire empire. The announcement was made by the National Grid Electricity System Operator, which manages the network of England, Scotland and Wales.
The record came just two years after the United Kingdom, for the first time, went three days without burning coal to produce electricity. Demonstrating that the path towards the energy transition and low-emissions energy production is well charted. The British government has set the goal of definitively phasing out coal by 2025.
The news comes just days after the report by the Committee on Climate Change, which confirms that the country can reduce its emissions to zero by 2050. "This is a crucial moment in the global effort to address climate change. Average global temperature has already risen by more than 1 degree compared to pre-industrial levels, bringing about increasingly evident changes in our climate," the report reads. "Over the past ten years, the emissions-reduction pledges of the world's countries have brought down projections for global warming from more than 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century to around 3 degrees. Achieving net zero emissions in the United Kingdom would bring the global effort to limit the increase further, to 1.5 degrees."
Forecasts confirmed also by Fintan Slye, chief executive of the national electricity grid. "As more and more renewable sources enter our energy system, coal-free periods are occurring regularly. We are confident that by 2025 we will be able to achieve zero emissions with regard to Great Britain's electricity system."
While eight countries brought to Sibiu, in Romania, a document calling on the Europe to come to aim for a zero-emissions economy and society by the middle of this century, as well as to dedicate a quarter of the budget to climate change adaptation, in our country the debate has not even begun, obscured by a permanent election campaign and by issues that, often, have nothing to do with the future of the generations that took to the streets in recent weeks. And to which answers will have to be given sooner or later.
