All units at UK coal power plant set to run over winter

All four units at Eggborough Power’s 2GW coal-fired power station in the UK are scheduled to run this winter, after a spokesman confirmed that the generator is not intending to close any of its units in the near future.

Late last year, Eggborough revealed that the 500MW Unit 2 would close this month, after discontinuing work to convert the unit to biomass when the government withdrew its backing through a subsidy scheme for renewable energy projects.

But the unit, which is currently offline for maintenance, is scheduled to return at the start of November and could operate until at least the end of August 2015, according to planned outage information published on Eggborough’s REMIT page.

“There are no Eggborough units currently scheduled for imminent closure,” the spokesman confirmed earlier this week.

With the unit’s return, capacity margins are set to be boosted at the start of week 45, the second week of November.

National Grid’s Elexon page shows that 1GW of coal power is scheduled to return at the start of that week, offsetting some of the nuclear power EDF is planning to keep offline until the start of December.

The long-term future of Eggborough remains in doubt however, with its owners reliant on government support to convert all four units to biomass to continue operating beyond the end of 2015.

Hopes that the station’s biomass conversion would receive support from the government receded in April, when it missed out on an investment contract intended to advance the deployment of new renewable energy ( see EDEM 23 April 2014 ).

Eggborough’s bosses have previously indicated that running the station on coal beyond 2015 would not be economically viable. Henry Evans