Coal news and updates

Britain’s decision to leave the European Union may push back its planned exit from coal, a mainstay in the nation’s energy supply for more than a century.

As the region’s second-biggest economy plans to close its last coal-fired power plant in less than a decade, it will be forced to rely more than ever on imports of natural gas and electricity. By leaving the EU, Britain could lose easy access to foreign supplies through the bloc’s single market, just as it plans to almost triple the number of power cables linking it to European nations by 2022.

U.K. utilities have closed coal plants that made up 9 percent of total generation capacity in the past year, adding to a shrinking supply margin that forced National Grid Plc to pay about 150 million pounds ($196 million) to keep already idled stations on standby since 2014. Some of the gap was meant to be filled by Electricite de France SA’s 18 billion-pound Hinkley Point C reactor, now thrown into doubt by new Prime Minister Theresa May’s call for more time to review the project.

“Brexit could make keeping the lights on more challenging,” said Alex Harrison, counsel at Hogan Lovells in London, who specializes in electricity markets and utilities. If security of supply is threatened, “we may even see coal-fired generation being kept on post 2025,” he said.

Exiting the EU will put Britain at a disadvantage, as it may be excluded from having a say in rules for the bloc’s wholesale power and gas markets, according to Paul Dorfman, a senior research fellow at the Energy Institute, University College London.

“The U.K. won’t be taken into account in decisions about the EU energy market and there is a real potential risk that Brexit will adversely affect Britain’s energy market,” Dorfman said.

Source: hellenic shipping News