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Danger of blackouts rising says energy regulator

Britain’s energy supplies are flirting with danger and investment in power generation is urgently needed to protect consumers, Ofgem says.

The energy regulator has published a report on energy capacity over the next six winters and suggest power cuts are likely to occur as energy suppliers are squeezed to capacity.

As electricity margins become squeezed, spare electricity power production could fall to as little as 2% by 2015.

If all preventative measures had been taken and demand was still not met there might, operators might have to appeal to major industrial consumers to reduce demand, before going to domestic customers to request they avoid turning on appliances at peak times.

The document said: “Since last year, the outlook for the supply side has deteriorated and industry has announced the withdrawal of more than 2GW of installed generation capacity in the near future. Further withdrawals are still likely.

“Uncertainty around policy and future prices continues to limit investment in conventional generation and no new plant is expected before 2016. We estimate that around 1GW of new gas plant will come online before the end of the decade and the installed capacity of wind power will more than double over the same period.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .