Letter from London: UK thermal generation economics in a spin

The country’s move away from market-based to subsidy-driven mechanisms is undermining both existing and new conventional generation

The June appointment of administrators for the UK’s Severn Power and Sutton Bridge combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power plants owned by independent power producer Calon Energy was, unfortunately, no great surprise. Even when Calon bought Sutton Bridge from France’s EdF seven years ago, its commercial assumptions were optimistic. Calon plants may well have been negatively impacted by 2020’s UK power demand reduction due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It certainly would not have helped. Odds against But the brutal truth is that the power market of the UK (or, more accurately, that of GB, as Northern Ireland sits within the All-Island Energy Market) has never justified optimism for conventional g