London Underground set to be 100% renewable powered

City Hall has made the announcement to launch Climate Action Week in the UK capital, running Monday 27th May to Sunday 3rd July. 

The Mayor of London’s office has publicly declared its goals of switching the Underground, also known as the Tube, to 100% renewable energy sources, with the first step coming in the form of a new Power Purchase Agreement tender. 

Sadiq Kahn, Mayor of London, made the announcement to launch London Climate Action Week, on Monday 27th May, in which he made it clear the city had signed a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, confirming commitment to moving one of Europe’s largest metropolitan areas away from ‘dirty energy’. 

London currently has a net-zero target of 2030, and changing the Tube’s power source to fully renewable will form a key part of this. Pre-pandemic, around 1.35billion passengers used the network each year, although this dropped during the height of the Covid-19 crisis to around 296million. Ridership is climbing again, with recent weekends seeing numbers returning to around two-thirds of their former height. 

In terms of electricity, Transport for London, which operates the Tube system, is among the UK’s largest power consumers, using around 1.6TWh annually, equal to some 420,000 homes, or 12% of all residential addresses in London. As such, the switch to renewables will further bolster demand within the burgeoning wind and solar generation industries, creating more jobs. London is now the largest global city to sign a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. 

‘When it comes to tackling air pollution and the climate emergency, I’m determined to ensure that London continues to take bold action. As many national governments around the world dither, cities have a responsibility to act and to show what’s possible,’ said Mayor of London, Kahn.

‘The main cause of the climate emergency is fossil fuels, so I’m calling on cities around the world to follow London’s lead to commit to phasing out their use,’ he continued. ‘The cost of inaction to our economies, livelihoods, the environment and the health of Londoners is far greater than the cost of transitioning to net-zero: we simply don’t have time to waste.’

Earlier this year, the Mayor of London set out a plan to retrofit buildings in the capital in a bid to speed up decarbonisation. 

Image credit: Tom Parsons