The Death of Coal Power in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom was the birthplace of coal. It has now, effectively, died there.

As shown in the chart, in the late 1980s, around two-thirds of the UK’s electricity came from coal. By the time I was born in the 1990s, this had dropped to just over half. The use of coal has plummeted in my lifetime. It now makes up less than 2% of the UK’s electricity. Coal was first replaced by gas but is now being pushed out by wind, solar, and biomass.

This Daily Data Insight was written by Hannah Ritchie.