Three British coal-fired power plants are needed again because of the cold winter weather

Britain’s power grid manager National Grid told three coal-fired power stations to prepare to generate electricity again on Monday. Help from power plants will be needed due to the current cold snap in the country. As a result, the energy demand of homes and businesses is expected to increase exponentially.

This is the first time this winter that the national grid has had to call on such excess capacity. Earlier, the weather was very mild, which limited energy demand. But now it looks like it will be very cold for a week. Another factor is that there is likely to be very little wind through Tuesday, so not much power can be expected from wind turbines.

The UK plans to stop generating power from coal next year. This is very harmful to the environment. But this winter, the government asked coal-fired power plants to remain available to help if needed. Coal is now seen as an alternative to natural gas, which has become very expensive and less widely available since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.