This #Coal-free run ended at 90 Hours 45 Minutes.
This is a modern record for Great Britain
Generation during this time was met by: Gas 42%, Nuclear 23%, Wind 12%, Solar 11%, Imports 7%, Biomass 4%, Large Hydro 1%, Storage 0% pic.twitter.com/Ii5RCjqTZK
— UK Coal (@UK_Coal) April 22, 2019
Great Britain went almost four days without having to draw power from a domestic coal power plant. That is good news. It is not great news, as half of the power generated and consumed still produced carbon dioxide but it is good news.
As countries continue to deploy more solar and storage prices come down, more and more days will be coal free. The next challenge over the next decade is to eat into cheap natural gas. And even there, there is hope as the combined levelized cost of power for brand new renewable generation is below that of fossil fuels. There is a huge bolus of natural gas capacity that has a significant natural lifespan in front of it, but the repair or replace calculation looks like it will be leaning towards replace with renewables and storage for most cases.
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