This week saw the UK’s last coal-fired power station cease operations – bringing to a close Britain’s 142-year reliance on a fossil fuel that until recently shaped landscapes and communities right across our home region here in South Wales.
Monday’s closure of the country’s last coal power station, at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, is literally the end of an era – the UK was the birthplace of coal power, and from this week onwards, it became the first major economy to give it up.
In our part of the world, we know all too well that coal is the dirtiest fossil fuel, producing the most greenhouse gases when burnt – but even in 2012, it still generated 39% of the UK’s power.
Over the past decade, the pace of change towards greener energy has been little short of remarkable.
In 2008, the UK established its first legally binding climate targets and in 2015, the then-energy and climate change secretary, Amber Rudd, told the world the UK would be ending its use of coal power within the next decade.
The fact that Britain has made that deadline with a year to spare is to be applauded – and built upon. In 2010, renewables generated just 7% of the UK’s power. By the first half of 2024, this had grown to more than 50% – a new record.
The scale and pace of that positive change highlights the huge potential that can be unlocked once the transformation of our own Aberthaw site is complete … and the immense force for good that clean growth can bring to the people and economy of South East Wales, and beyond.