UK power generation has set a new record by running without coal generation for a 72-hour period and counting, National Grid said Tuesday.
"Britain has clocked up over 72 consecutive hours without the need for coal-powered generation," a National Grid spokesman said. "The record comes just days after the first ever two-day period where power generated from wind and gas dominated the mix of energy, meeting the needs of electricity users across England, Scotland and Wales."
During the 72-hour period, which began Saturday at 0900 GMT, gas accounted for 30.3% of generation, followed by wind (24.9%), nuclear (23.3%) and solar (6.2%); biomass, hydro power, storage and imports made up the remainder, Grid said.
"Summer is always a supply story," a UK power trader said. "That will mean a big outage, there could be issues with availability. Eggborough coal-fired generation is closing in September too, and Drax-4 is also turning to biomass."
According to S&P Global Platts Analytics, although there have been zero coal running hours this week, declared coal availability for this summer is up almost 2 GW year on year.
"The reason for the uplift is fairly transparent -- the introduction of the Capacity Market has meant that plants with capacity contracts are more reluctant to schedule in long-term summer outages ahead of time," according to Platts Analytics.
"In reality, however, much of this capacity is unlikely to be available on the day outside of a system stress event (and some plants, such as Aberthaw, have been explicit on this)," an analyst said. "So, this summer could see the rise of the 'zombie' coal plant -- not quite alive, but not quite dead either."
