National Grid has held talks with Drax over bringing two coal-fired units at its vast power plant in North Yorkshire out of retirement to prevent power cuts and confirmed it will again run its scheme to help avert blackouts this winter.
While the grid’s electricity system operator (ESO) said that power plants and windfarms were expected to be able to generate more than enough to meet Great Britain’s needs, it will once again run its “demand flexibility service” that pays customers to reduce electricity use during peak times.
ESO has discussed possibly restarting the Drax units, which were shut this year after 50 years of coal-fired power generation at the Selby site.
Drax has converted four of the plant’s six units from coal to biomass in recent years and the final two units were kept available at the request of National Grid between October and March. It began decommissioning the units in April but the ESO said on Thursday that talks to keep them available for the winter were “ongoing”.
“We are still in negotiations and we are working with Drax and with government,” said the ESO corporate affairs director, Jake Rigg.
However, sources close to Drax said employees on the sites had already retired and work had begun on shutting down the units, meaning a restart was “very unlikely, although not impossible”.
In its early view of winter conditions, the ESO forecast that electricity supply would outstrip demand this winter, with a forecast buffer of 4.8GW of power. That gives the system a margin of 8% – higher than last winter.
“That’s really healthy. But even within that there will be tight days. There will be cold snaps in the winter and therefore we do expect to use our normal operational tools,” said Rigg.
The ESO said it was watching energy market conditions “like hawks” amid concerns that the energy crisis linked to the war in Ukraine could flare up again this winter, causing electricity shortages.
Last year the government scrambled to ensure security of energy supplies because of fears that a sudden reduction in Russian gas flows into Europe, combined with a cold snap, could cause rolling blackouts in the UK.
Under the demand flexibility scheme introduced by the ESO, about 1.6m households and businesses on smart meters with participating suppliers received payments for moving power to non-peak hours, easing pressure on the grid equivalent to the energy to power 10m homes.
The ESO also spent about £400m keeping Drax, Uniper’s Ratcliffe-on-Soar and EDF’s West Burton A coal plants on standby over the winter, to provide a back up if electricity supplies became tight.
The energy secretary, Grant Shapps, said in February that it would be “crazy” not to have the plants on standby again this winter but EDF shut West Burton A as planned in late March.
Ratcliffe remains open until September 2024, and was called into action this week during a surge in power demand as air conditioning units were used in the heat.
Green campaigners criticised calling on coal to generate electricity during a heatwave rather than Britain’s renewable energy industry. Low wind power and maintenance on nuclear and undersea cables contributed to the tight supply conditions.
Asked how central the Drax plant could be to supplies this winter, Rigg said: “It is a backstop. Ultimately, we are very much committed to decarbonisation of the electricity system but we also carry the responsibility to make sure electricity supplies are as reliable as possible. Our people in the control room take that responsibility very seriously.”
A spokesperson for Drax played down the idea the coal units would be available this winter. He said: “As we announced in April, we have closed our coal units at Drax and have started the decommissioning process. Since then, we have had various discussions with government and ESO, but we are not in negotiations to extend their availability into the coming winter.”
