Energy security (the access to on-demand, reliable and affordable sources of energy), is being negatively impacted in the UK by the decommissioning of coal based energy production plants, replacing them with energy production referred to as "Green Energy" without having the equivalent characteristics of coal energy production.
This was all initiated by an EU directive called 'the Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD)', which aims to reduce carbon emissions throughout Europe which targeted coal based energy generation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Combustion_Plant_Directive
The government following the EU directive have introduced a problem into the UK. We no longer have the same 'Peak Demand' capacity, lessening our resilience for energy surge demands as a nation, we are also more sensitive to energy blackouts, and higher energy pricing. All these changes are been initiated based largely on the belief that carbon emissions are causing dangerous man made climate change, and this is somehow going to be a clear and present danger for humanity. Even the IPCC reports (which are quite dull), don't report climate alarmism, it appears that the policy maker reports add alarmism to their reports.
We are currently in an energy transition phase which is commonly known as 'Net Zero', to reach net-zero targets will be hugely expensive for the consumer who will have to lower their quality of living standards in order to reach 'Net-Zero' targets. Politicians and consumers are slowly realising the insane costs needed to reach net-zero policy targets for the UK, and how it will negatively impact lifestyle standards, health, food production, taxes, supply chains, carbon credits, travel much, much more.
Green Energy such as: solar, wind, tidal are at the mercy of weather events which makes maintaining them expensive, they also have a high environmental impact when they reach their short life cycle; they usually cannot be recycled and have to be buried in the ground.
Furthermore green energy is heavily subsidised subverting market forces which usually determine if a technology will be adopted based on effectiveness, demand and profitability.
Nuclear, coal, waste, thermal, & hydroelectric methods of generating energy are tried and tested methods of producing energy and provide us with energy security.
Timeline of closures since LCPD
Issued in October 2001, the Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD) aimed to reduce carbon emissions throughout Europe. The deadline of 1st January 2008 allowed plants that did not comply with the strict emission limits to opt-out, whereby they could operate for a further 20,000 hours or until 2015 at which point they had to close.
You can read more about the UK’s phase-out of coal on:
Carbon Brief’s Countdown to 2025: Tracking the UK coal phase out
NOTE: Decommissioning of other power stations occurred prior to LCPD, Industrial Emissions Directive (IED) & the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
In 2023 Britain closed its last open cast coal mine, to help hit net zero.