According to statistics from the National Grid, the UK saw its greenest year on record in 2017, with more of the country's power coming from clean and renewable sources than any other year.
In April 2017 the UK had its first 24 hour period without using coal power since the industrial revolution, and in June, energy from wind, nuclear and solar power sources generated more power than gas and coal combined.
Energy produced from wind farms was more than that produced from coal power plants on more than 75% of days throughout 2017. This saw the cost of offshore wind fall below the price of nuclear for the first time.
However overall use of renewable energy only beat fossil fuels for a total of 23 days in 2017, showing there is still some way to go in renewable energy use.
Director of the System Operator at National Grid, Duncan Burt, said: "It’s been an exciting year managing the many "network firsts". We now have significant volumes of renewable energy on the system which poses an exciting challenge for us in ensuring the supply and demand is matched second by second".
The UK power system is now ranked the fourth cleanest in Europe and seventh cleanest worldwide.
