The UK's Stunning Grid Flip From Coal Giant to Clean Energy Leader (feat. @JustHaveaThink)

This autumn, for the first time ever, the UK is expecting to run entirely on zero-emissions electricity for a few hours. That doesn’t just mean a sunny day with loads of solar and wind and some exports to the neighbours—that’s happened before. But even during those times, gas power was still online, helping keep the grid stable. This time, the goal is no gas, no coal, no oil—and no electricity imports. Just clean, homegrown electricity. It’s a big milestone—and a taste of what a fully zero-emissions grid could look like. 40 years ago, coal made up three-quarters of the UK’s electricity. Even 15 years ago, it was still mostly fossil-fuelled, but with gas instead of coal. So how did they get from that… to here? And what would it take to go from a few hours of clean electricity… to 24/7/365? And beyond electricity—what else needs to happen to get to a fully zero-emissions economy? To help me understand how the UK pulled this off—and what’s next—I’ve brought in some local expertise: David Borlace, from @JustHaveaThink. Bookmarks: 00:00 Intro 01:53 How the UK got rid of coal 03:11 Per capita territorial emissions vs consumption emissions 05:04 Wind overtakes gas as number one generation source 07:14 Solar Power in the UK 08:13 CFD Contracts for Difference 09:32 Grid Innovations 11:34 100% renewable electricity 24/7/365 12:45 Getting clean electricity where people want to use it 14:17 Hydrogen and CCS 15:32 Decarbonising Transport 16:23 Home heating and insulation 17:01 Challenges If you would like to help develop the Engineering with Rosie channel, you could consider joining the Patreon community, where there is a chat community (and Patreon-only Discord server) about topics covered in the videos and suggestions for future videos and production quality improvements. https://www.patreon.com/engineeringwithrosie Or for a one-off contribution you can support by buying a coffee ☕️ here — https://www.buymeacoffee.com/engwithrosie The Engineering with Rosie team is: Rosemary Barnes: presenter, producer, writer Javi Diez: editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/javierdiezsuarez/?locale=en_US Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnAzoDtwCBg https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/apr/18/britain-outsourcing-carbon-emissions-china https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/production-vs-consumption-co2-emissions?country=USA~GBR~CHN~AUS https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/27/contents https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/the-seventh-carbon-budget/#:~:text=Targets%20support%20actions%2C%20but%20targets,up%20of%20renewable%20electricity%20generation. https://www.renewableuk.com/energypulse/blog/uk-wind-and-global-offshore-wind-2024-in-review/ https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-planning-rules-to-boost-solar-rollout-and-slash-energy-bills https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/07/18/new-uk-government-signals-strong-support-for-solar/ https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/clean-power-2030-action-plan https://www.regen.co.uk/insights/cfd-ar6-analysis-offshore-energy https://www.neso.energy/news/great-britains-first-grid-forming-battery-connects-scotland#:~:text=A%20Grid%20Forming%20Battery%20is,resilience%20of%20the%20electricity%20network https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/03/05/worlds-first-battery-storage-system-to-provide-full-active-and-reactive-power-services-comes-online/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/12/14/uk-installs-5-mw-ultracapacitor-as-sonar-to-detect-power-grid-inertia/ https://www.businessgreen.com/news/4348129/electricity-market-reform-octopus-energy-ceo-issues-renewed-shift-locational-pricing https://energy-efficient-home.campaign.gov.uk/heat-pump/ https://dwfgroup.com/en/news-and-insights/insights/2024/7/lifting-of-ban-on-onshore-wind-farms-in-england