Coal news and updates

ScottishPower is demanding the Government overhaul one of its key energy policies after the company’s proposed new gas power station missed out on subsidies for keeping the lights on in favour of old coal plants.

 

Neil Clitheroe, a senior executive at the energy giant, said making consumers pay almost £130m to keep polluting coal plants running through winter 2020-21 instead of investing in cleaner new gas plants was a “waste of money”, given the coal plants were scheduled to close by 2025 anyway.

 

The subsidies, which will be paid for on energy bills, were awarded through the Government’s annual “capacity market” auction earlier this month. ScottishPower, owned by Spain’s Iberdrola, failed to secure a subsidy contract to build a 1.4 gigawatt (GW) combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plant at Damhead Creek in Kent.

The Government has previously said it wants big efficient CCGTs to help replace old coal and nuclear, and made changes to the capacity market this year to encourage such plants. However, Damhead Creek and other such projects totalling about 8GW once again lost out in the auction, with about 6GW of existing old coal stations that required a lower annual subsidy price winning contracts.

 

Mr Clitheroe described the result as a “huge lost opportunity” and argued that paying to prolong the coal plants’ life as their closure deadline approaches instead of getting on and building the replacements, simply added to the eventual costs.

Source: The Telegraph