Britain's National Grid has issued a tender for the supply of additional generation reserves because of uncertainty over the availability of generating plants over the coming winter.
The grid firm says it will tender for generating plant that would not otherwise be available in the market to make themselves available to be held in reserve over the next few months.
The Supplemental Balancing Reserve (SBR) service is one of two services that National Grid can use to provide additional reserves during winter for the next few years if capacity margins are tight.
They were established in the recent Energy Act and will be available to National Grid until mid-decade when the capacity market is due to start operating.
National Grid says that it has been forced to issue the tender because of emergency shutdowns at two nuclear power stations as well as fires at two key coal-fired power plants in England in recent months. The actual volumes of SBR contracted will depend on how the outages evolve over the next two months, how the market responds and whether the prices offered in the tender offer value for money.
"This is a sensible precaution to take while the picture for this winter remains uncertain," said Cordi O'Hara, National Grid's Director of UK Market Operations. "At this stage we don't know if these reserve services will be needed, but they could provide an additional safeguard."
In addition to SBR, National Grid is also running a pilot tender for Demand Side Balancing Reserve (DSBR), under which large energy users opt to reduce their demand or run other sources of generation during peak winter periods.
"We have had a very positive response to the DSBR pilot and plan to offer contracts to the successful parties in September," said O'Hara. "Tendering for Supplemental Balancing Reserve will enable us to see what additional reserves can be provided by generators at a competitive cost."
EDF last month said that the detection of a fault in a boiler had prompted wider inspection work and would restrict the output of Heysham 1 and Hartlepool nuclear power plants.
This year has also seen fires at E.On's Ironbridge coal-fired power plant and SSE's Ferrybridge plant.
Sian Crampsie
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