First Update of April 2020 – An overview of last week’s Energy news

Below is this week’s summary. It should be a one minute read relevant to UK energy with links to documents for those who wish to read more.

(Click a bullet point to open the relevant article)

Monday – 30th March

• BMW has unveiled plans to have pilot production of hydrogen fuel-cell versions of its SUV models within 2 years.

• New York State’s last working coal-fired power station, working since the early 1980’s, has closed.

Tuesday – 31st March

• Two coal-fired power stations, one each in England and Wales, working since the early 70’s, have closed on the same day. Only 2% of UK electricity was generated using coal in 2019 and government is committed to all remaining coal power stations closing before 2025.

Wednesday – 1st April

• UK Government announced international climate change meeting; Conference of Parties (CoP26), scheduled to be held in Glasgow in November 2020, has been postponed. Consideration is being given to an alternative date in 2021 in partnership with Italy.

• A piece from Birmingham University Energy Institute which tracks and analyses UK energy usage: For electricity, response to government instructions on movement and working arrangements, makes weekdays look like weekends in terms of demand. Article points out that similar trends for transport (and corresponding emissions) are occurring but data are not available until months later.

• Northern Echo reports that a government decision for the proposed opencast coal mine in northeast England is imminent. The applicant states that in 2019 UK used 8 million tonnes of coal of which only 3 million was for power generation. 5 tonnes were used in other industries including steel which used 3 million tonnes. 86% of coal was imported. Opponent says the answer is to ‘stop burning coal and stop digging it up’.

Thursday – 2nd April

• The Energy Networks Association has published a report stating that a ‘whole systems’ approach is required for energy to reach net zero emissions by 2050. This includes carbon pricing and a shift from natural gas transmission to hydrogen for heating.

Friday – 3rd April

• UK planning and construction ‘pipeline’ of large scale, ground-mounted solar power plants now exceeds 7 GW capacity. Article breaks this down by time and location but suggests many of these will be delayed by the current situation.

Sunday – 5th April

• A bright, breezy spring day on Sunday meant renewables contributed over half of power generated. Some customers were paid to use electricity during the day according to this Guardian article.