National Grid Coal Power Stations Warmed Up for the First Time Amid Cold Snap

A view of the cooling towers of the Drax coal-fired power station near Selby, northern England, on Sept. 25, 2015. (Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

Two of the UK’s coal-fired emergency power stations have started supplying electricity to British homes for the first time this winter.

Amid a windless cold snap, Britain’s National Grid used coal-fired emergency units for the first time as electricity supplies tightened on Tuesday.

Last year, the government approached several coal-fired power stations that were set to shut, asking them to be on standby this winter.

The plants have been warmed up a few times so far this winter, but Tuesday marked the first time that they started to produce electricity.

The West Burton generation sites are run by French energy giant EDF.

The emergency plans kicked in as wind electricity production is currently low and there is a lack of exports from France due to an EDF strike.

National Grid

The National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) said an electricity margin notice (EMN) had been issued to the market, but that was later cancelled.

“This is a routine tool that we use most winters and means we are asking generators to make available any additional generation capacity they may have. The EMN does not mean electricity supply is at risk,” it wrote.

The ESO issued an additional notification that it will warm four of our five winter contingency coal units for potential use on March 7.

The National Grid said on Monday that gas produced 50 percent of British electricity, followed by wind at 24.3 percent and nuclear at 11.1 percent.

Rationing scheme

Last January, during another cold snap, a power blackout prevention energy rationing scheme was rolled out to tighten the electricity supply, for the first time ever.

The National Grid said it would be activating its Demand Flexibility Service (DFS) to encourage households to avoid using electricity at peak time on Monday evenings.

The scheme, which incentivises people who have installed smart meters at their homes to use less electricity such as on radiators, ovens, and washing machines, during specific periods of time, has so far only been used in tests.

At the time, Head of National Control at National Grid ESO, Craig Dyke, did not say if the scheme would become a feature of British life, but told Sky News that activating it marked a “first step towards net zero.”

“‘It is something we strongly believe in. It provides flexibility for the system and the consumer. We see this as a growing market. We see this as a world-leading step forward into a space where we can only grow and drive forward toward net zero,” he said.

In response, net-zero policy critic Ben Pile told The Epoch Times that the new rationing scheme is a “reorganisation of society around the weather.”

£200 billion to £300 billion

From Oct. 1, 2024, Great Britain will no longer use coal to generate electricity, a year earlier than planned as part of the government’s commitment to transition away from fossil fuels and decarbonise the power sector by 2050.

On Tuesday, energy industry experts gave evidence to the Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Committee about achieving the government’s target of decarbonising the power sector by 2035 and whether the state of network infrastructure can support this.

When asked if the grid will be ready for net zero by 2030, Akshay Kaul, Ofgem’s executive director, Infrastructure and Security of Supply, said: “I think almost certainly there’s a huge amount of build that’s needed to get to the material targets that you mentioned and that is going to need a concerted effort from the whole industry, from the regulator and the government.”

“I think as we look at the next decade, and the one after that, we have to shift to a system that anticipates doesn’t lag behind, anticipates the renewable generation, and builds the grid capacity out in advance so that when the renewable generators are ready to connect, the grid capacity is already there,” he said.

“I think that is absolutely fundamental. And that is going to involve an immense amount of investment in grid capacity,” he added.

Kaul estimated that somewhere between £200 billion to £300 billion is going to be needed to get to a 2050 target.

Basil Scarsella, chief executive of the UK’s biggest electricity distributor UK Power Networks (UKPN), which is owned by the Hong Kong CK Infrastructure Holdings, was asked a similar question.

“I wish I could give you an answer on that but it’s clearly not the electricity networks on their own that will deliver net zero but certainly from our objective, is to make sure that the electricity networks are fit for purpose to enable the community to achieve net zero,” he said.

PA Media contributed to this report.