Electricity Generation
(asked on 17th October 2018) - View Source
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether it is the Government's policy to move away from using coal to generate electricity in the UK; and what assessment his Department has made of the effect of higher gas prices on the level of electricity generation from (a) coal and (b) gas.
The Government is committed to ending the use of unabated coal for electricity generation by 2025. Government measures and support for low carbon technologies mean that coal has gone from generating 39% of the UK’s electricity in 2012 to 7% in 2017[i]. Coal’s share of electricity generation was 1.6% for 2018 Q2. Gas’ share of electricity generation was 42% for the same period[ii].
The Department considers and analyses a range of future price scenarios and the effect on anticipated generation from coal and gas; a number of these scenarios are published as part of the BEIS Energy and Emissions Projections[iii]. Changes in gas prices are one of a number of factors that can affect the amount of coal and gas generation on the system at any particular time. Higher gas prices may incentivise some switching from gas to coal due to impacts on gas-fired power plants relative profitability in the short term. While there may be a small increase in the share of coal generation this winter, we do not expect these recent fluctuations to significantly affect the trajectory to the end of unabated coal by 2025.
[ii] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/electricity-section-5-energy-trends
[iii] https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/energy-and-emissions-projections