Scotland will on Thursday witness an end to the coal age which fired its industrial revolution with the closure of Longannet power station.
The symbolic switch off is an important step towards a lower carbon Britain but is another blow to energy security.
The Fife-based plant – the biggest of its kind in Britain – has been generating electricity for a quarter of Scottish homes for almost half a century but has bowed to a mixture of old age, rising transmission costs and higher taxes on carbon.
Over 230 direct jobs and an estimated 1,000 indirect ones could be hit by the decision from Spanish-owned utility, Scottish Power, to switch off the last generator at the 2,400 mega watt capacity plant.
“Coal has long been the dominant force in Scotland’s electricity generation fleet, but the closure of Longannet signals the end of an era,” said Hugh Finlay, generation director at ScottishPower.
“Longannet has contributed more electricity for the national grid than any other power station in Scotland’s history, and it is a sad day for everyone at ScottishPower,” he added.
No decisions have been taken on the future of the site, but Scottish Power expects to outline its plans before the end of the year. Longannet is the largest coal-fired plant in Britain as rival Drax is firing as much wood as coal these days. When built Longannet was the largest of its kind in Europe.
WWF Scotland director Lang Banks said: “The closure of Longannet marks an historic and inevitable step in our energy transition as Scotland becomes one of the first nations to end its use of coal for power.
“While the power station has served the nation for many years, the world is moving forward to cleaner, cheaper forms of renewable energy generation.”
There are still a couple of open cast coal mines in Scotland but Longannet was the last big user of supplies. Locally-mined coal was key to Clydeside shipbuilding and steelmaking north of the border in the last century.
Scottish Power, one of the big six energy suppliers and now owned by Iberdrola, once had half a dozen coal-fired power stations but is now dependent on gas and wind farms for generating electricity.
A spokesman for the company said Longannet had originally only been expected to work for 25 years but heavy investment in new equipment had allowed it to keep on running for 46 years.
“It was uneconomic to continue”, said the Scottish Power spokesman, because of the high transmission charges and carbon taxes. However, he added that the company was still investing heavily in energy systems
Six new onshore windfarms with investment of over £650m are currently in construction, and over £500m will be spent this year strengthening the network of cables, power lines and substations that keep the lights on for 2.5m homes and businesses.
Last November Amber Rudd, the energy and climate change secretary, unveiled plans to close all British coal-fired power stations by 2025 as part of a plan to reduce the country’s carbon emissions.
