Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | OCTOBER 2022 | 25 Generation for energy at No 10 Downing Street and now a partner at Flint Global, says: "There will be a willingness to at least keep it [coal] as a back-up reserve and you'll be looking at something similar for next winter." "The expectation this winter is that coal will only be used as a last resort," says Dr David Jo„ e, head of carbon budgets at the Climate Change Committee. Asgeir Heimisson, senior associate for GB Power at Aurora, expects the pattern of recent winters to continue with plants like Drax only being dispatched when the market gets "really tight". He says: "Exactly the same will happen. We only really rely on the Drax and West Burton plants for additional support at really tight moments when there could be uncer- tainties about gas supply." Curbing emissions is not the only aim of energy policy and it is vital to keep the lights on too, says Jo„ e: "The climate is obviously important but it's the only thing involved in energy policy and it's not like we're building coal plants. "It's not going to a„ ect emissions for many, many years to come, it's just a one-o„ this winter. Where we've got the capacity, we'll probably need to use them more than we expected for emergency situations." The likelihood is that probably coal use will be "elevated" for one winter, he says: "That's justi' ed in circumstances that are extremely unusual. Clearly the most impor- tant thing from a political perspective is that the lights stay on. In particular, it is really important for climate policy in the UK that the lights do not go out as a result of climate policy. If we said that you can't run the coal plants and then there wasn't enough electric- ity, that would be bad for perception of cli- mate policy." In for the long-haul? Perhaps a more worrying question in terms of the climate agenda will be whether the coal renaissance proves to be • eeting or a more enduring phenomenon. "That's where it becomes more di– cult for them to continue," says Buckland. Beyond curbing emissions, there are other sound reasons for eradicating coal from the UK system, argues Adam Bell, the former head of energy strategy at the Depart- ment for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). Pointing out that Russia supplies about one ' š h of the coal the UK imports for power stations, he says: "We import a surprising amount of coal from Russia. Obviously, that is ultimately unsustainable." Adding in the expense of the fuel and it is unlikely coal's stay of execution will be extended, says Bell: "It's a crisis thing. By 2025, depending on world events, we will back away from it." Heimisson expects that by 2024 Europe will have sorted out much of its gas supply concerns and the technical problems bedev- illing the French nuclear • eet should have been ' xed, meaning the UK can rely on inter- connectors for backup power more than it has been able to this winter. Meanwhile the continued • ood of new wind and solar generation on to the system will mean progressively less need for fossil fuel power. Says Jo„ e: "We have other forms of generation gradually coming on to the electricity system, which squeezes the room for fossil fuels in general. Therefore you can hold gas generation at its current level or bring it down even while also coming o„ coal because o„ shore wind in particular will be coming on to ' ll the gap." Getting new o„ shore wind farms planned and built within the next 18 months will be too much of a stretch but other forms of renewables can be deployed within this timescale, he says. "We can roll out onshore wind and solar in less than a year with a favourable planning treatment and a sense of urgency. "So there's still the possibility that we can reduce the amount of fossil generation we need signi' cantly, as well as doing things to limit the demand. We can shrink the size of fossil generation we need signi' cantly over the next 18 months." Strong backing for nuclear While coal may be enjoying an Indian sum- mer, nuclear power too is back in vogue, at least in government circles, as a response to the current crisis. Ex-prime minister Boris Johnson recently pointed out that the once controversial strike price of £92.50/MWh, which EDF secured for its Hinkley Point C plant in 2017, doesn't look such a bad deal in the context of current wholesale prices. "Most things stack up ' nancially at the moment: it's a question of how long you think the prices are going to last," counters Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace UK. Given that any new reactor commissioned today will be operational only in the ' rst half of the 2030s, nuclear isn't the answer to the current crisis, says Grimston. "At last we are building nuclear stations, which we should have been doing decades ago, but they're not going to help us through the crises over the next ' ve or 10 years so it's too little, too late, or certainly too late." Jo„ e agrees: "New nuclear can contribute to reducing gas consumption and to decar- bonisation. The reality is also that it takes upwards of a decade to commission and build a new nuclear reactor. "That doesn't preclude nuclear being part of the solution to the next gas price if there is one, but it cannot be a short-term option. Whereas onshore wind and solar can be deployed so much more quickly." Short term, though, the UK's still opera- tional nuclear power stations will play a valuable role in keeping the lights on this winter, says Heimisson: "We should be expecting nuclear to do as much as it can do for the next two winters." There is still just over 6GW on the system, including one of Sizewell B's 600MW units which is due to shut for planned mainte- nance in February next year, he says: "It has to happen. No matter how tight the system is, it will be hard to justify keeping it online." He is con' dent that the system will be able to cope though, noting that the UK's CCGT • eet has 30GW of capacity, which he can never recall generating simultaneously. But longer term, the UK will have to face up to the closure of the vast majority of EDF's ageing nuclear • eet by the end of this decade, he says: "I wouldn't expect to see anything squeezed out of them beyond what they have said." While it may not be a short-term solution to this winter's crisis, the "huge potential" future demand for electricity in a net-zero energy system means all low-carbon genera- tion options must be on the table, says Jo„ e. "Whether it's tidal or nuclear, you shouldn't be ruling out any sources of zero carbon electricity because we might need them all," heªsays. David Blackman, policy correspondent "It's not going to aff ect emissions for many, many years to come, it's just a one-off this winter." Dr David Jo e, head of carbon budgets at the Climate Change Committee

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