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This Telegraph story discusses the coming shortfall of UK domestic power generation, which the Engineering institues have been warning of for something like 15-20 years.
Keeping Britain's lights on will come at a price - Telegraph
Given that there were warnings for years, why have the Government (both the Coalition and the preceding Labour one) been so slow to act?
Keeping Britain's lights on will come at a price - Telegraph
On Wednesday January 16, due to unplanned outages and cold weather, National Grid had to find power to supply roughly a million homes to keep the lights on.
Fawley, an oil-fired plant in Hampshire, was one of the power stations that responded. Next winter Fawley will not be there. Indeed, about 10pc of our current generation stock goes next month as coal and oil-fired power stations close earlier than expected to meet environmental targets.
Four years ago, Ofgem’s Project Discovery report outlined how the combination of the global financial crisis, along with tough environmental targets, and the forced closure of ageing coal and oil power stations would combine to provide a unique challenge for securing electricity supply from 2015 to 2020.
Our report to the Government, published in October last year, was a sequel to Discovery, which confirmed this prognosis but with even more alarming warnings. This was because cheap global coal was driving gas stations to close or mothball.
If you can imagine a ride on a roller-coaster at a fairground, then this winter, we are at the top of the circuit and we head downhill – fast. Within three years, we will see the reserve margin of generation fall from about 14pc to less than 5pc. That is uncomfortably tight.
Given that there were warnings for years, why have the Government (both the Coalition and the preceding Labour one) been so slow to act?