Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what steps her Department has taken to provide replacement electricity generating capacity following the closure of coal-fired power stations at Ferrybridge and Longannet; and if she will make a statement.

The Capacity Market is designed to ensure sufficient capacity is available to meet demand. The first auction held last year contracted a total of 47.3GW of capacity delivery year 2018/19 and a further auction for delivery year 2019/20 will be held later this year.

In the shorter term the Government has worked with National Grid and Ofgem to put in place an effective plan which allows National Grid to procure New Balancing Services. This worked well last winter. This plan has been robustly stress-tested to cope with the toughest system conditions, and is flexible enough to adapt to individual plant closures such as Ferrybridge and Longannet.