Wednesday, January 13, 2016

The UK Electricity Map


Carbon Brief has mapped the UK's power stations in order to show where and how the country meets it's power demands. The map provides a fascinating insight into where the different types of power station are sited in the UK.

The map uses colored proportional circle markers, which are used to show both the capacity of each power station and how they are fueled. The colors of the markers indicates how the power station is fueled and the size of the marker represents the station's capacity in megawatts.

The How the UK Generates its Electricity map also includes the option to filter the station shown by type of power station. This allows you to see where the different types of power stations are concentrated within the UK. For example solar powered stations are almost exclusively concentrated to the south of the country, in areas which get the most hours of sunlight.

Coal powered stations are concentrated mainly in the north of England near historic coal mining communities. Wind farms tend to be concentrated around the coast and on higher ground. All the UK's nuclear power stations are located on the coast in order to be near a ready supply of cooling water.

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