National Grid ESO has called on two contingency coal units to warm ahead of expected tight margins tomorrow evening (7 February).
Both Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station (RATS-1) and West Burton (WBUPS-1) are warming units, with an estimated capacity of 480MW and 400MW respectively.
“The ESO has issued a notification to warm a second of our five winter contingency coal units for potential use on Tuesday 7 February,” said an ESO spokesperson.
“This notification is not confirmation that the units will be used on Tuesday, but that they will be available to the ESO, if required. The ESO as a prudent system operator has developed these tools for additional contingency to operate the network as normal. This does not mean electricity supplies are at risk.”
This is the fourth time the coal units have been asked to warm this winter by the ESO, but as yet they haven’t actually been used.
The most recent occurrence of warming the units was ahead of the evening peak on 26 January, when three units were warmed following a request from France for additional capacity.
French system operator RTE asked National Grid ESO for assistance, as its expected generation was lower than normal due to EDF worker strikes over planned pension reforms impacting nuclear and hydropower output.
The operator previously warmed the units ahead of expected tight margins on 23 January and 12 December – both of which periods saw Britain experiencing particularly cold weather.
National Grid ESO signed contracts with Drax, EDF and Uniper in 2022 following concerns over the system stability. The use of them is the last ‘Enhanced Action’ – along with the use of its new Demand Flexibility Service which has seen more than ten tests as well as its first live event – open to the operator ahead of having to resort to emergency measures. These were set out by the ESO at its Autumn Markets Forum in September.
The units give the ESO an additional 2.5GW of buffer capacity, and are set to cost between £340 million and £395 million, subject to the procurement and use of the coal.
Name |
Volume |
Date |
West Burton A (EDF) |
2 x 400MW |
1 Oct 2022 – 31 Mar 2023 |
Drax |
2 x 570MW |
1 Oct 2022 – 31 Mar 2023 |
Ratcliffe (Uniper) |
1 x 480MW |
Nov 2022 – 31 Mar 2023 |