Britain set to achieve historic milestone in clean energy in 2019

摘要

More electricity is to be generated from zero carbon sources than fossil fuels in Britain this year, marking a historic milestone for the country, thanks to a number of innovative approaches such as connecting Britain's electricity grid to its neighbours via under water cables called interconnectors, including the new North Sea Link plugging Britain into Norway's hydro network. According to National Grid, annual power generation data from the last decade shows Britain's reliance on cleaner energy sources (wind, solar, nuclear, hydropower and storage) will overtake fossil fuels (coal and gas fired power generation) this year. This is a major step in Britain's journey towards the UK Government's target of net zero emissions by 2050. In May, Britain marked its first coal free fortnight and generated record levels of solar power for two consecutive days, powering more than a quarter of the country's daily electricity consumption. "The incredible progress that Britain has made in the past ten years means we can now say 2019 will be the year net zero power beats fossil fuel fired generation for the first time," said John Pettigrew, CEO of National Grid. "Having reached this landmark tipping point the question is what are we doing today to get to net zero as quickly as possible?