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It was spawned out of the Brussels obsession with weaning all European countries off coal power.
INTERNET BLACKOUTS SKYROCKET AMID POLITICAL INSTALL
The Large Combustion Plant Directive forces all coal or oil-fired power plants built before 1987 to install expensive emissions-reducing equipment or face closure by 2015. The most damaging piece of EU ‘green tape’, industry insiders say, is a 2001 measure designed to limit emissions for older power stations. It added: ‘The risk of electricity shortfalls is expected to be highest at the end of the period, in 2015-17.’ The report warned that there ‘will be a significant reduction in electricity supplies from coal and oil plants over the period, primarily driven by closures required by European environmental legislation’. Making our housing stock more energy efficient not only cuts demand and provides a greater margin with our supply – it also provides much-needed reductions in consumers' bills.' 'We also need to see energy efficiency programmes being delivered as widely and effectively as possible. To avoid this happening the Government and regulator must ensure that the costs passed onto consumers are fully transparent and rigorously scrutinised. 'At the same time however consumers cannot write a blank cheque to cover the costs of new energy. 'It is right that we close our oldest and most polluting energy plants, but it is essential that new initiatives deliver investment in alternative energy generation to meet this gap. ‘Action is needed to guarantee the secure energy supply the UK has enjoyed for decades. 'Consumers need protection from price spikes as well as power cuts.
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Ofgem said the UK faced ‘an unprecedented combination of the global financial crisis, tough environmental targets and the closure of ageing power stations that would increase the risk to consumers’ energy supplies and could lead to higher bills’.Īudrey Gallacher, director of Energy at Consumer Focus, said: 'While there is enough generation capacity to mean that widespread power-cuts are still unlikely, narrower margins mean the risks of outages are higher and scarcity of energy could also feed into possible price rises in future. The battle to keep the lights on could then become a stand-off between British ministers trying to keep the country running and European bureaucrats trying to enforce rulings on the UK. National Grid and the Government could order mothballed generating plants to fire up again to plug the energy gap. If the report’s predictions come true, Britain could be left dependent on an unreliable undersea cable line with France for its emergency energy supply. The ‘alarming’ findings have left senior figures in the energy industry desperately worried, sources say, as the vast scale of the challenges facing the UK’s energy future becomes clear. The UK’s spare generating capacity, currently 14 per cent, could drop to 4 per cent or even shrink to nothing at the same time, it warned. But it could drop to as low as one in 12 over the next three years, Ofgem said. The chance of blackouts, similar to those seen during the three-day week crisis of the 1970s, is currently rated as one in 3,300 by the energy regulator. Didcot power station: The station will close in 2013, further reducing the UK's power independence