EC Clears Extra UK Capacity Auction

A planned UK supplementary electricity capacity auction scheduled for January 2017 is in line with EU state aid rules, the European Commission said December 5. 

The new auction will bridge the gap before the Great Britain Capacity Market, approved by the EC in 2014, becomes operational at the end of 2018.

UK wholesale power prices had "decreased significantly" since that 2014 approval, the EC added, and thus an “unexpectedly higher number of capacity providers therefore risk closing” meant that the UK may no longer have enough reliable capacity – unless it ran the planned supplementary auction.

Last week the EC published a detailed report into how electricity capacity mechanisms operate across the EU; many benefit gas-fired plants.

One firm that secured a capacity contract under the UK's original 2014 contracts, Carlton Power's 1.5-GW Trafford gas-fired CCGT project in Manchester, was set a deadline this July of December 19 by the UK to finalise its £800mn investment – or else lose its capacity contract. A Carlton Power spokesperson told NGW that the firm is working “within the timetable available” to it and that “talks with investors are ongoing.”

Carrington gas-fired CCGT which began commercial generation this September (Photo credit: ESB)

Also in Manchester, Irish state-owned ESB’s 881-MW Carrington CCGT which began generating in mid-September became the first large gas-fired plant to come online in Great Britain since 2013.

Mark Smedley