National Grid acts to secure supply for winter 2015/16

National Grid has taken steps to secure the UK’s electricity generation supply next winter by contracting three power plants to remain on standby over the winter of 2015/16.

The transmission system operator has offered contracts to two Centrica-owned gas-fired power plants, South Humber Bank and Barry, which will be contracted to provide 40MW and 227MW respectively. In addition Corby Power’s gas-fired plant has been contracted to provide 353MW of power for next winter.

Power plants contracted to the so-called supplemental balancing reserve (SBR) will be required to be available to National Grid between 0600hrs and 2000hrs between November and February next year in order to help meet peak demand over a period forecast to have the tightest supply margins, and highest risk of blackouts, in almost a decade.

National Grid has also tendered 300MW of demand-side balancing reserve (DSBR) contracts which are on offer to power users able to cut their use of grid power when required at times of system stress.

“We already know that the margin between supply and demand next winter is expected to be tight, mainly due to plant closures. These contracts represent a prudent initial step, which will support us in balancing supply and demand,” said National Grid’s director of UK market operation Cordi O’Hara.

“We might be in the middle of this winter, but as a prudent system operator, it’s vital that we plan ahead to next year and beyond,” O’Hara added.

Further tendering for both demand and supply capacity contracts will take place in spring next year to bring the total for each to 1,800MW, and National Grid has added that the SBR contracts for this winter might also be extended.

For winter 2014/15 SBR contracts were awarded to SSE’s Peterhead gas-fired power plant, RWE’s Littlebrook and Scottish Power’s Ryehouse gas-fired power plant following unexpected outages over the summer which temporarily reduced winter’s expected margins to fall in line with winter2015/16 expectations.

However, the reserve bench of generating plant for this winter has raised concern as both the Peterhead and Littlebrook plants faltered in mandatory test conditions.

Peterhead failed the test due to a faulty generating unit and was forced to retake the test a week after failing while Littlebrook experienced a drop in generation towards the end of an otherwise satisfactory run and was not required to repeat.