The UK government has been pursuing a policy of closing down coal mines since the 1990s for reasons other than climate change — mainly political.
Last month, the UK’s last coal-based generation plant at Ratcliffe-on-Soar (Nottinghamshire) was taken off the grid. The country’s first coal plant was set up more than 140 years ago and the Ratcliffe-on-Soar plant had been in operation since 1967. The pace at which coal-based generation has been brought down in the UK is phenomenal. The share of coal in the electricity mix in the UK in the 1950s was about 97 per cent. It had dropped to a mere 8 per cent by 2016. In the last couple of years, it was less than 2 per cent.
The UK government has been pursuing a policy of closing down coal mines since the 1990s for reasons other than climate change — mainly political. In 2015, the government decided to completely phase out all coal-based plants by 2025 — the deadline was later advanced to October 2024. To get rid of coal-based generation, the government relied on market drivers and regulatory interventions. Practically all governments in the UK have increased the cost of carbon dioxide emissions and the EU made emission norms more strict. The government also introduced mandatory use of carbon capture and storage for all new coal-based plants. These measures ensured that coal-based generation became increasingly more expensive and unprofitable. Developers decided to move out to other pastures.
Part of the success was also due to the fact that the UK had cheap gas as an alternative to coal. Equally important is the fact that UK has already peaked its electricity generation and is now on the way down, both in terms of total generation and also in per capita terms. Generation in 2000 was 377 billion units (BUs) and it was down to 286 BUs in 2023, a decrease of about 24 per cent. Similarly, per capita electricity consumption came down from 6 megawatt hours (MWHs) in 2000 to 4.1 MWHs in 2023, a decrease of 32 per cent. There was thus enough excess capacity to phase out coal-based generation. Another point merits consideration. The UK imports a fair amount of electricity and imports have gone up considerably this year. In the second quarter of 2024, it imported 20 per cent of its electricity demand. The UK was not dependent on domestic coal-based generators and the country could easily fill the gap through imports.
Can India follow in the UK’s footsteps? The answer is an emphatic no. India’s demand for power is still growing and has not peaked. So the country need to add to its installed capacity every year. India does not have access to cheap gas to substitute coal. Several issues have crippled the growth of the hydro sector. The nuclear sector contributes less than 3 per cent to the electricity mix. Growth in renewable generation may look spectacular but its far less than what is required to meet the demand in 2030. So, India needs to rely on coal and the country’s policies seem to be geared to that. The country is delaying the retirement of coal-based plants and wants them to operate beyond the tenure of the power purchase agreements — usually 25 years. Directions have been given to coal generators to import coal and run plants to full capacity. Guidelines on environment norms were issued in 2015 and over time, they have been relaxed to accommodate more coal-based generation. This is exactly the reverse of what was done in the UK where norms became more and more stringent. Our track record in installing flue-gas desulfurisers (FGDs) is very bad — less than 5 per cent of the identified capacity in the central sector has installed FGDs. Amongst the state sector generators, not a single plant has installed FGDs.
The UK has made some progress in the decarbonisation of the power sector though it hasn’t got rid of carbon footprints completely. It is highly dependent on gas which is half as dirty as coal. Climate Watch, an online data platform managed by the World Resources Institute, has rated the UK’s nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to be “insufficient” for meeting the Paris targets. The reasons cited are backtracking on phasing out of petrol/diesel cars, the continuing government support for extraction of oil/gas in the North Sea, and lack of support for industrial electrification.
The writer is senior visiting fellow, ICRIER, and former member (Economic & Commercial), CEA. Views are personal
