Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, how much his Department has budgeted for payments to energy companies to maintain spare stand-by electricity generation capacity for winter 2014.

National Grid is responsible for procuring New Balancing Services to provide reserve capacity. Procurement is subject to a methodology approved by Ofgem.

National Grid announced in October that it has procured an additional 1.1GW of reserve capacity for this winter. This will cost less than £1 per household and will increase capacity margins from around 4% to over 6%.