UK cuts off coal
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The UK’s last coal plant has closed.
On 30 September 2024, the Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station in Nottinghamshire, which had been in operation since 1967, was permanently shut down.
The closure signals the end of nearly 150 years of coal power in the UK, and is part of the nation’s commitment to decarbonisation and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
The shutdown of Ratcliffe-on-Soar is part of a broader trend of phasing out fossil fuels and transitioning to renewable energy.
To address the missing dispatchable power, the UK is repurposing former coal plants into battery energy storage systems (BESS). This allows excess energy from renewables to be stored and used when demand is high.
The UK’s National Grid predicts that battery storage capacity must rise dramatically - by a factor of six to eight by 2050 - to ensure grid stability as coal plants retire.
While it is not clear what the Ratcliffe-on-Soar site will become, there have been suggestions it could become a BESS site, or even house a prototype fusion reactor.
Australia faces a similar energy transition.
The Liddell Power Station in New South Wales is being transformed into a 500-megawatt battery storage facility, set to be operational by 2025.
The Australian Energy Market Operator anticipates that the country’s grid will need to triple in capacity by 2050 to replace retiring coal plants and handle rising demand.
