Fire cuts British power imports adding to supply squeeze, soaring prices

The ‘incident’ as they call it is likely to put the affected power link to France out of action for about four weeks. Is paying in excess of £450 per megawatt-hour of electricity sustainable? This is what can happen when fuel-burning power stations are closed and not replaced, as per political climate obsessions.
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A fire halted a power link between France and Britain on Wednesday, squeezing tight UK electricity supply further and sending prices to near record highs, reports Reuters.

Day-ahead British power prices jumped almost 19% on the news, nearing record highs hit this week exacerbated by low wind supply and soaring gas prices. read more

National Grid said the fire prompted the evacuation of its IFA1 interconnector site in Sellindge in Kent.

“The fire at the IFA site essentially means the loss of 2 gigawatts (GW) of interconnection capacity between the UK and France which further tightens the supply situation in the UK,” said Roy Manuell, EU power and carbon analyst at ICIS Energy.

A spokesperson for National Grid’s electricity system operator (ESO) said Britain would have sufficient electricity supplies on Wednesday despite the incident.

“We currently have a sufficient buffer of spare capacity to operate the electricity system securely over this evening’s peak demand period,” he said in an email.

Wednesday’s almost 19% price jump took British day-ahead electricity prices to 475.00 pounds per megawatt hour (MWh), close to a record high of 540 pounds MWh hit this week.

Full report here.