There are calls for a carbon emission limit to be put on power plants for backup capacity contracts. As we noted earlier this week, at the auction to provide the UK with backup energy generating capacity from two-month, contracts were mainly awarded to companies to build new, highly-polluting "diesel farms" and coal-fired power stations. Only one new gas-fired station secured a capacity contract in the auction, highlighting the contradiction between "rewarding" dirty emergency power stations and the UK's ambitions to tackle climate change, which includes a 2025 deadline to close all coal-fired plants and build cleaner gas-fired plants to fill that void. British think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, has called for a limit of 450 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour to be set, a level which would effectively rule out bids from coal and oil-fired plants but not gas plants. In response, the UK Government has already said it will make proposals next year to reform the capacity market after a 2019 consultation that closed last week.
There are calls for a carbon emission limit to be put on power plants for backup capacity contracts. As we noted earlier this week, at the auction to provide the UK with backup energy generating capacity from 2019, contracts were mainly awarded to companies to build new, highly-polluting "diesel farms" and coal-fired power stations. Only one new gas-fired station secured a capacity contract in the auction, highlighting the contradiction between "rewarding" dirty emergency power stations and the UK's ambitions to tackle climate change, which includes a 2025 deadline to close all coal-fired plants and build cleaner gas-fired plants to fill that void. British think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, has called for a limit of 450 grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour to be set, a level which would effectively rule out bids from coal and oil-fired plants but not gas plants. In response, the UK Government has already said it will make proposals next year to reform the capacity market after a two-month consultation that closed last week.