Britain’s electricity system operator has ordered coal generators to warm up in case there is a need to come online to help the grid with the soaring energy demand due to the cold snap.

These power plants have joined the National Grid ESO’s winter contingency plans – they will be used only if there is extreme pressure on the electricity system.

On Sunday, Britain’s electricity system operator asked Drax to start warming two of its coal units at its North Yorkshire power plant and EDF to do the same for its West Burton plant.

The same pattern was followed on Tuesday.

An ESO spokesperson said: “The ESO has issued a notification that we will warm winter contingency coal units for potential use on Thursday 26th January.

“This notification is not confirmation that these units will be used on Thursday, but that they will be available to the ESO, if required. The ESO as a prudent system operator has these tools for additional contingency to operate the network as normal.”

In case you missed it, read ELN’s report on what the process of keeping a certain number of coal units on call means.