And since you’ve mentioned pumped storage, I have to post this video again. It’s practically the law.
Overall, this is a great milestone, but this is just the start of the difficult part of decarbonisation.
The groundwork for the coal switch off was laid in the 1990s, with the Dash for Gas- Replacing coal with gas took a slice off of carbon emissions, and left the UK with a fleet of power plants that can ramp their production up and down very quickly. This is very suitable for the current situation, where renewables can just be added to the grid, and the energy balance is made up by turning the gas plants up or down.
The real challenge is now how to get rid of gas, because renewables are inherently variable. We need more investment to get loads of new generation onto the grid, but even with loads of new windfarms, there will be times when this doesn’t meet demand. I think longer term the solution will be to use renewables to generate fuel (either by electrolysing water to produce hydrogen or green ammonia ), which can be stored and used in the remaining gas plants to generate power when needed.
Oh, and the other link I have to give is this:
