Renewable energy edges out fossil fuels as Britain goes coal free for two months
Last night marked a significant landmark in the renewable energy sector. Great Britain has gone two entire months without burning any coal to generate power.
A decade ago about 40% of the country’s electricity came from coal; coronavirus is part of the story, but far from all.
When Britain went into lockdown, electricity demand plummeted; the National Grid responded by taking power plants off the network.
The four remaining coal-fired plants were among the first to be shut down.
The last coal generator came off the system at midnight on 9 April. No coal has been burnt for electricity since.
The current coal-free period smashes the previous record of 18 days, 6 hours and 10 minutes which was set in June last year.
Displacing fossil fuels is nothing new to Balcas; we’ve been producing renewable energy now for over 15 years. Both by making wood pellets and creating renewable electricity for our local communities.
Balcas Energy’s Invergordon and Enniskillen sites have production capacities of 115,000 tonnes and 60,000 tonnes of wood pellets respectively.
Our operations are so efficient that we put surplus electricity back into the grid throughout the year:
- Invergordon, Scotland has a production capacity of over 110,000 tonnes a year. This is the largest local pellet prodiction facility in the UK and Ireland and has a 9MW CHP (electric) capacity, of this 5MW is exported to the grid, while the other 3MW used on site.
- Enniskillen, Northern Ireland is the site of a 3MWe Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant and pellet mill with a production capacity of over 60,000 tonnes per annum. It is located on the same site as the our timber mill due to the close proximity of raw materials.
Our biomass pellets are always available, as we are in control of manufacturing and distribution. Wood Pellets for sale online 24/7 via our Online Shop:
- Bagged Wood Pellets (Wood Burning pellets in bags of 10kg)
- Blown Wood Pellets
