Nuclear plants offline sees UK power supply “tighten”

Several units at British nuclear power stations are offline for the start of August which means the power supply is likely to “tighten” for the next week or so. As […]

Several units at British nuclear power stations are offline for the start of August which means the power supply is likely to “tighten” for the next week or so.

As a result power contract prices for the “prompt” – i.e. very soon – opened slightly higher this morning.

That’s according to the daily market report from npower which looks at what is affecting power, gas and oil prices in the UK energy market.

Power delivery for tomorrow opened at £36.55 which is 5 pence a MWh more than prices at close of play yesterday, a npower analyst told ELN.

Steven Walker, Client Portfolio Manager at the supplier said in the market report: “Analysis of near dated changes to power station availability included Heysham for a couple of days from the 6th [of August, which removes] around 400MW of availability.”

He also said Dungeness work affects between 200 and 500MW of availability in the first week of August.

The fire at coal plant Ferrybridge units means almost 500MW of availability is to be offline all through the first week of August, at least.

Added together this spells a “tightening things on the power side”, he said.

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