I don't think that chart really makes your case since it's measuring total production and on a total production basis it simply isn't true that gas and biomass replaced coal.
If you pull that chart to its full timeline, over 200TWh of coal production existed, and it's essentially all gone now, but there isn't 200TWh of gas and biomass, in total they're maybe 140TWh. There is 60 TWh of wind power production.
Now, in terms of capacity for instantaneous power, the Combined Cycle Gas Turbine plants probably do add up to similar capacity to older coal plants which were phased out, at least very close, but it's pretty rare for all that generation to actually be needed - this chart doesn't really show that.
As to "transition" the countries which look "slower" on this chart are mostly using a lot of hydro, which is very different from wind or solar, as well as being readily available from the mid-20th century a point where solar and wind power were not really established options. So we're not talking about China having a bunch of wind turbines, then kicking back for a decade and only adding more recently, but instead their enormous country has hydro power, and now it also is adding wind turbines. The UK is a small island (and some other even smaller islands which are useful for wind but don't produce hydro power) and doesn't have vast majestic water bodies like Lake Mead, so hydro power has always been a tiny niche here, and that's all you're really looking at.
> If you pull that chart to its full timeline, over 200TWh of coal production existed, and it's essentially all gone now, but there isn't 200TWh of gas and biomass, in total they're maybe 140TWh. There is 60 TWh of wind power production.
Indeed, if you view the whole chart, the development during the 90s directly supports my claim I'd say.
But still, I guess I phrased my actual point rather poorly. True, wind and solar produced almost 1/3 of the UK's total electricity over the last 12 months, but what kept the grid stable was mostly natural gas.
In this role natural gas replaced coal.
> Now, in terms of capacity for instantaneous power, the Combined Cycle Gas Turbine plants probably do add up to similar capacity to older coal plants which were phased out, at least very close, but it's pretty rare for all that generation to actually be needed - this chart doesn't really show that.
Yes, pretty rare. But this is exactly what grid stability is about. Making sure the lights stay on even though it's cold and there's no wind. As for example end of November 2022 till middle of December:
If you pull that chart to its full timeline, over 200TWh of coal production existed, and it's essentially all gone now, but there isn't 200TWh of gas and biomass, in total they're maybe 140TWh. There is 60 TWh of wind power production.
Now, in terms of capacity for instantaneous power, the Combined Cycle Gas Turbine plants probably do add up to similar capacity to older coal plants which were phased out, at least very close, but it's pretty rare for all that generation to actually be needed - this chart doesn't really show that.
As to "transition" the countries which look "slower" on this chart are mostly using a lot of hydro, which is very different from wind or solar, as well as being readily available from the mid-20th century a point where solar and wind power were not really established options. So we're not talking about China having a bunch of wind turbines, then kicking back for a decade and only adding more recently, but instead their enormous country has hydro power, and now it also is adding wind turbines. The UK is a small island (and some other even smaller islands which are useful for wind but don't produce hydro power) and doesn't have vast majestic water bodies like Lake Mead, so hydro power has always been a tiny niche here, and that's all you're really looking at.