Glad to report we have made some progress in keeping the lights on. Intervention has secured the capacity cited below to bring into use when there is insufficient wind and solar available. This amounts to around a third of necessary output on a cold busy day and to around half of other times:
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (117398):
Question:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what is the maximum electricity output from all coal and biomass generating plants in the UK that would be able to operate if needed. (117398)
Tabled on: 06 January 2023
Answer:
Graham Stuart:
As of the end of September 2022, the installed capacity of coal and bioenergy plants in the UK totalled 14.1 GW of electrical power. This comprised 5.9 GW for coal-fired plants (Digest of UK Energy Statistics, DUKES 2022, Table 5.11) and 8.1 GW for bioenergy plants (Energy Trends, December 2022, Table 6.1). The latter comprises 4.7 GW for solid (animal and plant) biomass and 3.4 GW for other bioenergy.
The answer was submitted on 16 Jan 2023 at 14:57.
