Asked by: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what recent progress has been made on the gas generation strategy.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Gas Generation Strategy [1], published in December 2012, set out a range of proposed measures, at that time, to support investment in new gas plant. The Government has made significant progress in delivering the measures outlined in the Strategy. Of particular importance was the introduction of a capacity market in 2014 which provides reliable capacity, including gas plant, with secure revenues. The Government believes the capacity market provides the necessary financial incentives to ensure new gas plant are brought forward as and when needed.
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gas-generation-strategy
Asked by: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, how many terawatt hours of electricity have been imported into the UK by individual interconnectors since 2013.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The table below shows the net imports of electricity via interconnectors for 2013 to 2015.
TWh | |||||
| France - | Ireland- | Netherlands- | Ireland- | Total |
| UK1 | N.Ireland2 | UK1 | Wales1 |
|
2013 | 10.3 | 0.0 | 6.3 | -2.2 | 14.4 |
2014 | 15.0 | 0.1 | 7.9 | -2.4 | 20.5 |
2015 | 13.8 | 0.2 | 8.0 | -1.1 | 20.9 |
1. Demand data available on the National Grid website at
2. Data available on the SEMO website at www.sem-o.com/marketdata/pages/energysettlement.aspx.
Further details on imports, exports and transfer of electricity via the interconnectors are available in Energy Trends Table 5.6 at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/electricity-section-5-energy-trends
Asked by: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what discussions she has had with UK electricity generators on the effect on the electricity market of market imported electricity by interconnectors not subject to the carbon price floor.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department has discussed this issue with Energy UK and its members. The Government supports greater interconnection, and Ofgem’s assessment of the impact of importing electricity shows significant benefits to the consumer. The first round of new projects could deliver more than £11.8bn of consumer benefits over 25 years, primarily driven by reductions to the GB electricity wholesale price. Ofgem’s assessment also considered a scenario with no carbon price differential between countries and concluded that this would make no material difference to the business case for these projects.
Asked by: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, how many megawatts of Combined-Cycle Gas Turbine construction is taking place in the UK; and what the (a) size and (b) location is of each of those constructions.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There is currently one CCGT project under construction and commissioning. This has a connection capacity of 910MW and is located in Carrington, Greater Manchester.
Asked by: William Cash (Conservative - Stone)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, if she will publish the information her Department holds on the (a) process, (b) criteria and (c) guidance followed by the National Grid to deliver (i) supplementary balancing reserve and (ii) black start ancillary services contracts for the next 12 months; and what analysis was taken in advance to inform that delivery.
Answered by Andrea Leadsom - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
These services are a matter for National Grid, and the appropriate documentation is published on their website. The contingency balancing methodologies are available here:
These documents also include National Grid’s analysis.
And information on the procurement of the Black Start Service is published here:
National Grid have not published their analysis of this as it is commercially confidential.