With the push of a button Thursday afternoon, Scotland ended an era.

More than a century of coal use abruptly ended, according to Think Progress, when the Longannet power station ceased operations. The energy source that powered Scotland for 115 years will no longer be used as the country shoots for a goal of 100-percent renewable energy for electricity by 2020, the report added.

“For a country which virtually invented the Industrial Revolution, this is a hugely significant step, marking the end of coal and the beginning of the end for fossil fuels in Scotland,” Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said in a statement.

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The 46-year-old plant, which was originally intended to be in operation for just 25 years, finally closed because of the high cost of connecting to the power grid, Scottish Power told BBC.com. The company is working to find employment for the 5 percent of workers still looking for new jobs, the report added.

In those 46 years, the plant burned more than 177 million tons of coal, as well as 2.7 million tons of heavy fuel oil and 2.4 million cubic meters of natural gas, according to the National. It also used more than 60 billion cubic meters of water from the nearby Forth Estuary as cooling water, the report added.

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As Scotland moves on from coal, they're well equipped for the next generation of cleaner energy. The country's renewable energy output has more than doubled since 2007, Think Progress also said, and it boasts the largest wind farm in the United Kingdom. They'll still rely on nuclear and gas plants to produce a sizable chunk of their energy, but as Scotland continues to expand renewables, the nation gets closer to the 2020 goal every day.

Environmental groups in the U.S. also praised the plant's closure and said they look forward to the day when America leaves coal dependency behind.

“The U.S. is moving beyond coal with 232 plants announced for retirement, and just today China announced new measures to stop unnecessary new coal plants,” Maura Cowley, director of the Sierra Club’s International Climate and Energy Campaign, said in a statement.

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