The birthplace of coal powered electricity generation is now on the verge of becoming coal power free. The Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal power plant in Nottinghamshire will close at the end of this month, marking a major milestone in the UK’s energy transition.
Coal’s decline in the UK has been rapid, plunging from nearly 40% of UK power in 2012 to near zero today. Stable government policy with bipartisan political support, effective regulations, and targeted support for renewable energy made a UK coal phaseout possible. The UK used its experience to spearhead international efforts to quit coal and now must further accelerate global momentum through new and existing diplomatic alliances.
UK coal power phaseout was 15 years in the making
The UK will soon become the first G7 and advanced economy to completely phase out coal power. This achievement should be used to push for faster international action to phase out coal power globally by 2040. While the closure of Ratcliffe-on-Soar is just around the corner, the UK’s story of coal phaseout started more than 15 years ago.
- Ambitious and legally binding climate targets set the scene in the UK. The 2008 Climate Change Act fired the starting pistol on the UK’s coal phase out journey. The product of years of civil society campaigning for climate action, it was endorsed by all major political parties, and saw the UK become the first country in the world to implement legally binding emission reduction targets. This sent clear signals on UK policy to the market and international community.
- Regulations on coal were critical to the UK’s climate objectives. European air quality regulations set the first regulatory hurdles for coal and saw 8 GW of capacity come offline in the UK. Then in 2009, the then-and-now Energy Secretary Ed Miliband declared that ‘the era of new unabated coal has come to an end’. The UK’s coal fleet was reaching the end of its operational lifetime. Instead of handing out new licenses, the government banned any new coal projects not employing carbon capture and storage (CCS). The decision marked the beginning of the end for the UK’s coal power sector as CCS proved too expensive to implement on new or existing plants.
- Targeted support for key industries established clear alternatives. The UK government – then a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition – under consistent pressure from civil society, invested heavily in its wind industry through policies within The Energy Act of 2013. These provided incentives for renewables and enabled the UK’s wind industry to scale up while driving down prices.
- Market and power sector reforms to promote renewables enabled a rapid transition. Following the Energy Act, the UK introduced Electricity Market Reforms that invested significantly in the UK’s power infrastructure so that it could accommodate more renewables. It also set the carbon price at a level that heavily disincentivised high carbon coal power generation. Following this, coal’s share in power generation collapsed.
Coal was not replaced with gas generation in the UK. Gas generated 34% of the country’s power in 2023, up slightly from 28% in 2012. Instead, huge increases in wind (up 315%), solar, and declining electricity demand filled this gap and has seen UK power sector emission plummet by 74% since 2012.
Ratcliffe’s closure coincides with global progress on coal
The UK has been a frontrunner in the phaseout of coal power, but it has also been part of a growing global shift. Since the Paris Agreement of 2015, there has been a 70% reduction in global planned coal capacity and the number of countries planning new coal has halved from 65 to 33.
This has largely been due to the plummeting cost of renewable energy which is now a cheaper alternative to coal in most markets. The cost of solar has dropped by 90% since 2015, with the cost of wind also falling significantly. The European Commission and the G7 have all called for No New Coal globally, not only because it’s essential for the climate, but also because it is now feasible to do so and comes with significant economic advantages.
The UK’s leadership on coal phaseout helped enable the creation of the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA). Founded by the UK and Canada in 2017, the PPCA has been hugely successful, growing to 181 national, sub-national and non-state actors committed to the phaseout of unabated coal power, including 24 out of 27 EU governments. A critical international platform for support on coal phaseout, it will be vital in maintaining the momentum needed on coal.
The science is clear: all OECD countries need to phaseout coal by 2030, with non-OECD countries doing so by 2040 and we need to urgently end the construction of new coal power plant now. Ed Miliband, now back as UK Energy Secretary after 14 years, should capitalise on this historic moment by reinforcing the UK’s commitment to leading the global coal phaseout and accelerating the clean power transition through the UK’s Global Clean Power Alliance. This must include coordinated international action to accelerate coal retirement, triple renewable energy capacity and double the rate of energy efficiency improvements, and should be laid out ahead of COP29 in Azerbaijan.
