UK power imports recover after falling to 2 per cent of energy mix

Power imports into the UK have recovered following a string of outages and last week's French cold snap which drove its share to just 2 per cent of the total generation mix.

The IFA interconnector between the UK and France is back to 2GW capacity after maintenance brought its capacity down to 1GW at the beginning of the month, according to power analyst Abigail Beall.

Additionally, she said, colder weather in France last week caused price spikes, meaning between 7am and 7pm CET on 14 to 16 October, the IFA was exporting from the UK to France.

Speaking to Utility Week on 19 October, Beall said: “The IFA has been exporting again for two hours this morning and from the scheduled commercial exchanges it looks like it’s going to be exporting a little bit today again, but by tomorrow it will be back to imports.

“It is now back to 2GW capacity and has been since Saturday morning.”

Between 14 and 17 September, 1GW of imports from the Netherlands to the UK was taken away, as the BritNed interconnector was taken completely off line for maintenance.

Since the carbon price support came in at full strength, the UK has typically imported electricity from the continent, although imports with Ireland are more variable.

Electricity coming into the UK via interconnectors averaged 12 per cent of UK generation between January and September this year.

Analysts at Moody’s have suggested that new interconnectors will help significantly bring down UK power prices in 2020 and beyond.

Senior analyst Graham Taylor said he expects average power prices to remain significantly above those in mainland Europe, “largely as a result of UK carbon taxes”. However, this differential will “drive significant growth in interconnection” and, by 2020, interconnectors will “set lower overnight prices” in the UK.