David T. C. Davies – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

The below Parliamentary question was asked by David T. C. Davies on 2016-02-01.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what estimate she has made of how much dispatchable electricity capacity will be lost in 2016 due to planned power station closures.

Andrea Leadsom

It is estimated that the total conventional capacity installed in 2016/17 will be 58.1 – 59.1GW[1]. This represents closures of around 0.5GW – 1.8GW[2] between 2015/16 and 2016/17 and reflects the July 2015 Future Energy Scenarios outlook.

However, for 2016/17, National Grid have already secured 3.6GW of capacity within their Contingency Balancing Reserve, in which additional power stations are held to provide security in times of system stress. This extra capacity will help us to ensure we meet the GB 3 hour LOLE reliability standard and will be sufficient to maintain security of supply even in the toughest system conditions.

In addition to the Contingency Balancing Reserve, from 2018, the Capacity Market will ensure that retiring plant can be replaced by new investment by providing additional secure investment for both existing and new electricity generators

[1] As presented in Ofgem’s Capacity Assessment 2015, including Nuclear.

[2] Figures presented in this response are not de-rated to reflect expected availability at Winter peak.