UK electricity capacity auction for 2027/28 clears at record high

FILE PHOTO: An electricity pylon is seen in Leicester, Britain, April 25, 2020. REUTERS/Andrew Boyers/File Photo

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s auction to ensure enough electricity capacity for 2027/28 cleared at a record high of 65 pounds ($82) per kilowatt (kW) per year, National Grid said late on Tuesday.

Britain launched its power capacity market in 2014, offering to pay providers for making capacity available to ensure the country has enough power.

A total of around 43 gigawatts (GW) of capacity was procured, National Grid’s EMR (electricity market reform) delivery body website said in a provisional auction document.

The auctions are usually held about four years in advance of the delivery date, with another auction for a smaller amount of capacity held a year before delivery.

Tuesday’s result was a record high for an auction held four years in advance.

“The high clearing price implies tight supply/demand dynamics in the UK power generation market and offers some protection to generators against gas/carbon driven weakness in wholesale power prices,” analysts at Jefferies said in a research note.

Winners of contracts included utilities such as SSE, EDF, Uniper, Drax and RWE.

The majority of capacity contracts, 77.5%, were awarded to existing power generation plants with 13% also awarded to existing interconnectors with other countries, the documents showed.

Plants to be newly built secured 3.9% of the capacity while new interconnectors secured 2.4%.

($1 = 0.7885 pounds)

(Reporting by Ashitha Shivaprasad in Bengaluru and Nina Chestney and Susanna Twidale in London; editing by Louise Heavens and Mark Heinrich)