Question

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the list of electricity generating plants that has pre-qualified to bid in to this year’s planned capacity auction, how many gigawatts of existing coal plant are eligible for contracts of over one year and how many gigawatts of new gas capacity have qualified to bid for 15 year contracts; what is the total gigawatt capacity of new plant qualifying for 15 year contracts that is under the current threshold for the application of emissions controls under the European Emissions Trading scheme; and what is the breakdown in terms of fuel type of these smaller pre-qualifying units.

In total 67.3GW of capacity has prequalified to participate in the first Capacity Market auction in December this year.

This is extremely positive and indicates that the auction will be competitive, which will help to keep costs down while providing security of supply for consumers.

Information relating to the eligibility of each plant that has successfully pre-qualified is publicly available on National Grid’s website as the Delivery Body for the Capacity Market.