Coal-free power hits record high

BRITAIN smashed its record for the longest spell without generating electricity from coal over the weekend.

Using a combination of gas, nuclear, wind, solar, imports, biomass and hydro, the UK was powered for 90 hours and 45 minutes from Thursday until yesterday.

It broke the previous longest period of 76 hours and ten minutes, which was set in April 201 .

Duncan Burt, director of operations at National Grid, lauded the achievement as ‘a really big deal’.

‘It’s all about the sunny weather we’ve been seeing, so energy demand is low. There has been lots of lovely solar power off the panels too.’

Muna Suleiman, climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: ‘Ninety hours of coal-free electricity is great, but let’s make this all day every day.’

Plans to phase out all of Britain’s coal power plants by 2025 have been announced by the Government in a bid to cut greenhouse gases.