The UK government denied that the shutting down of Engie's Rugeley power station will lead to blackouts. The closing of the French company's Staffordshire plant may cut 150 jobs and affect 190 contractors.
"We are clear that providing a secure supply of affordable energy for our families and businesses is non-negotiable. There will be no impact on this winter and action has already been taken to secure extra capacity for next winter," said a spokesman in a report by The Guardian. "We will continue to work alongside National Grid and Ofgem to take whatever additional steps are necessary to protect our energy supply."
Reuters reported that Engie and Mitsui & Co. Ltd.'s coal plant can provide up to one-gigawatt, which is enough to power up one million homes. The increasingly popular renewable energy product and significantly low gas prices have overtaken coal-fired power plants out of Britain's energy industry. Engie said the increase in carbon cost, the decline in commodity market, and the fall of power prices have lead to the rapid drop in coal plant in the UK.
In a report by SkyNews, Rugeley "B" has been running since 1970. Just this month, SSE announced that it would close most of its plants in the 1,995-megawatt Fiddler's Ferry plant. The power supplies in the UK have been tightening and the National Grid must come up with contingency plans to still provide energy when harsh winter will affect electricity network. Some of these plans include running mothballed plants for standby power and asking big businesses to temporarily reduce energy use.
Engie owns a 2-gigawatt plant in north Wales called First Hydro and another 1-gigawatt gas-fired plant at Saltend in East Yorkshire. The company owns three other plants. Rugeley is just one of the plants that has been forced to close down. The 2-gigawatt Eggborough plant located in Yorkshire and the Longannet in Fife will close down in March. Meanwhile, Ironbridge in Shropshire recently closed last year.
