Coal Dominates U.K. Energy Mix in Q3

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) -- High gas prices saw the use of coal for electricity generation in the U.K. rocket to its strongest share in 14 years.

The latest figures from the U.K government's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) saw coal account for 35.4% of the electricity generated in the country during the third quarter of 2012, up almost 50% on the same period in 2011. This was coal's strongest Q3 in 14 years, and runs against growing efforts by the government to reduce the amount of fossil-fuel used in the country's electricity mix. In contrast, gas-fired generation accounted for 28.2%, its lowest third quarter share for 14 years, which was blamed on high prices.

DECC said: "Coal consumption by electricity generators was up by 49.6 per cent to 11.2 million tonnes, reflecting the switch from gas to coal for electricity generation. Coal consumption by generators over the three quarters of 2012 is already at 93 per cent of the level seen in 2011."

It added: "U.K. demand for natural gas was 18.0 per cent lower in the third quarter of 2012 compared with a year earlier. This was the lowest third quarter demand since 1995. This was mainly driven by a large decline in gas used for electricity generation (at the expense of coal) which was lower by 39.4 per cent".

The Energy Trends and Quarterly Energy Prices report for Q3 2012 also showed a resurgence for nuclear power, which accounted for 22.3% of electricity generated. This represents an increase of 14.4% on the same period in 2011 which was characterised by a number of significant outages at nuclear plants.

Renewables continued their steady rise in the generation mix, recording a share of 11.7%, up 2.6% on Q3 2011. Wind energy was responsible for much of the boost with offshore wind generation jumping by 54.2% in the year while onshore wind generation rose by 38.2%. Renewable electricity generation was 9.5 terawatt hours ( TWh) in the third quarter of 2012, an increase of 25.2% on the 7.6 TWh in the third quarter of 2011.

Overall low carbon fuels accounted for a record share of 34% of generation.

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