As I’ve written about before here and here and here, the UK has been sneakily good at switching to renewables over recent years.

They’re pretty much coal-free now, which is fantastic, even though they still have plenty of natural gas in the mix.

So we now get headlines like this in the Guardian: National grid fires up coal station for the first time in 55 days.

This is what happened:

“National Grid has fired up a coal-fired power station for the first time in 55 days after Britain’s record-breaking heatwave brought wind turbines to a near-standstill and caused gas-fired power stations to struggle.
“The electricity system operator brought Britain’s latest coal-free streak to an end by calling for the Ratcliffe-on-Soar power station in Nottinghamshire to begin generating electricity before a peak in electricity demand.
“Electricity supplies have become tighter than expected during the heatwave because gas-fired power stations have struggled to generate electricity at their maximum capacity owing to the unusually high temperatures. At the same time wind turbines have slowed because of low wind speeds.”

An unlucky combination of factors, really.

Shit happens.

To give an idea of just how intermittent wind power can be:

“Electricity output from Britain’s wind farms, which generated 30% of the UK’s electricity in the first quarter of this year, fell to lows of 4% on Wednesday afternoon.”

Bummer!

Anyway:

“It brings to an end the coal free run, but Britain has operated for almost 3,300 hours without coal so far in 2020 – over 60% of the year,” National Grid said via Twitter on Wednesday afternoon.”

Glass half full.