Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of net negative generator payments on the Contracts for Difference Scheme.

Under the Contracts for Difference (CfD) scheme, a generator is paid the difference between the ‘strike price’ – a price for electricity reflecting the cost of investing in a particular low carbon technology – and the ‘reference price’ – a cost measure of the average GB market price for electricity. Generators have to pay back the difference to the Low Carbon Contracts Company (LCCC) when market prices are higher than the strike price.