UK closes last coal-fired power plant

September 30, 2024

Uniper’s Ratcliffe-on-Soar power plant, the last coal-fired facility in the United Kingdom, is closing today. The plant began operating in 1968. With the closure, UK becomes the first of the G7 economies to completely eliminate coal from its electricity generation.

Many of the 170 employees will stay on to dismantle the infrastructure over the next two years, said owner Uniper to the media.

“(The plant’s closure) marks the end of an era and coal workers can be rightly proud of their work powering our country for over 140 years. We owe generations a debt of gratitude as a country,” Energy Minister Michael Shanks said in a statement.

The plant had a generating capacity of 2 GW and supplied electricity to two million homes. The last delivery of coal, about 15,000 tonnes, arrived by train last June.

The UK imported 49,700 t of thermal coal in 2023 compared to 0.14 mt in 2022, 0.19 in 2021 and 0.59 mt in 2020.