Utility Week - authoritative, impartial and essential reading for senior people within utilities, regulators and government
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/626032
Finance & Investment This week Coal-fired generation may 'get a reprieve' Seven of the UK's remaining coal-fired stations leave the door open to operating beyond 2023 Coal-fired generation may be "getting an unlikely and unex- pected reprieve", former shadow energy secretary Tom Greatrex has said, following news that seven of the UK's remaining coal-fired power stations have le the door open to operating beyond 2023. Writing on page 7 of this week's issue of Utility Week, Greatex said energy secretary Amber Rudd's recent com- mitment to phase out coal by 2023 "is perhaps going to be a more difficult commitment to meet than envisaged". His comments follow the news that the owners of seven coal-fired power stations have chosen not to take the government up on its offer of an opt-out from Euro- pean emissions targets. Had they done so, they would have had to close by 2023 as part of the deal. Instead, the power plants can either comply with stringent European emissions limits immediately, or sign up to a transitional national plan (TNP) that gives them until 2020 to do so. This latter route enables the plant's owners to keep their options open, delaying a decision on when and whether to close the plants. The seven stations are: Drax, Ratcliffe-on-Soar, Fiddler's Ferry, Cottam, West Burton, Aberthaw and Rugeley. EDF-owned Cottam and West Burton and RWE's Aberthaw had all been granted opt-outs by the govern- ment, which were later rescinded, suggesting a change in intention on the part of their owners. Greatrex wrote: "Perhaps large generators can foresee further lucrative tightened capacity induced measures from government and grid three or four years hence." TG ElEctricity Lynemouth power station sold to EPH Lynemouth power station has been sold by RWE to Energeticky a prumyslovy holding (EPH), the Czech energy company that also owns Eggborough power station. The 420MW plant near Ashington in Northumberland ended generation from coal in December before beginning its conversion to run on biomass. Earlier in the month it received state aid clearance from the European Commission to receive subsidies under the Contracts for Difference scheme. The plant is expected to be back up and running by the beginning of 2018. Post conver- sion it should produce 2.3TWh of electricity each year, enough to power around 700,000 homes. ElEctricity Quick reconnections save networks cash Energy networks' prompt response to Storm Eva on Boxing Day has avoided a repeat of the fallout from the 2013 storms that saw companies pay £8 million in compensation, Moody's has said. The ratings agency said Electricity North West (ENW) and Northern Powergrid's quick reconnection of customers leaves them facing "insignificant" costs, although the full repair bill will not be known for some time. Moody's expects Northern Powergrid to make compensa- tion payments of £250,000 to its customers aer only 1,400 of the 37,000 customers who lost power in the storm were not reconnected within the required 48-hour period. ENW will be lia- ble for £100,000 in compensation payments to 1,250 customers. Aer the 2013 storm, SSE and UK Power Networks made com- pensation payments of £4.7 mil- lion to 16,000 customers. Ofgem required them to pay a further £3.3 million. EnErgy WPD begins battery storage project Large-scale battery storage took a step closer to reality last week as network company Western Power Distribution (WPD) announced a research project designed to realise the benefits of using energy storage on an industrial scale. WPD has joined with British Solar Renewables (BSR) and the National Solar Centre to build the first embedded battery storage project that will deliver ancillary services to a DNO. The project, expected to be completed by 2018, will see a 300kVA/640kWh battery energy storage system installed at a 1.5MW solar park in Butleigh, Somerset, which will then be connected to WPD's South West network. Aberthaw: change of heart on opt-out Utility WEEK | 15th - 21St JanUary 2016 | 17 Stock watch 30 25 20 15 10 RWE shaRE pRicE, JanuaRy 2015 - JanuaRy 2016 Jan 15 May 15 Sep 15 Jan 16 15 10 5 Eon shaRE pRicE, JanuaRy 2015 - JanuaRy 2016 Despite an "extremely painful" year for German utilities RWE and Eon in 2015, analysts at Jefferies said this week that they saw "better prospects this year" due to a pragmatic outcome to the nuclear debate, fresh corporate strategies from Eon and RWE and stabilising German power prices. RWE shares fell almost 52 per cent in 2015, while Eon shares dropped more than 36 per cent. "We rate Eon as a buy and RWE as hold," Jefferies said. Jan 15 May 15 Sep 15 Jan 16