UK Government To Subsidise Coal Power Plants To Back Up Wind Farms
The Government will soon offer subsidies, funded by levies on consumer bills, to power stations to switch on quickly when wind farms are not generating sufficient electricity. Coal plants are needed to prevent blackouts by backing up wind farms when the wind does not blow, according to the chief executive of Britain’s largest power station.
Dorothy Thompson, who runs Drax, the coal and biomass plant, said that people were only now starting to appreciate the problem that wind farms pose.
The Government will soon offer subsidies, funded by levies on consumer bills, to power stations to switch on quickly when wind farms are not generating sufficient electricity, under so-called capacity auctions. Environmentalists are opposed to subsidies going to coal plants, which emit twice as much carbon as gas plants and are supposed to be phased out by environmental legislation and taxes.
Drax, which generates 7 per cent of the UK’s electricity, yesterday said it was interested in taking part in the first auction, which takes place next year to cover the winter of 2018, as fears grow about the danger of blackouts. Ofgem has said that within two years Britain’s spare generating margin could fall from 14 per cent to as low as 2 per cent.
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