The closure of any more power coal-fired power plants could leave Britain without the energy it needs, a senior Tory MP has warned.
John Redwood said a European Union directive had already seen the closure of eight coal-fired power stations to date, as he urged ministers not to allow any more to shut.
His comments came as Energy Minister Michael Fallon told MPs the future of coal power generation looked “poor”. He said at present up to 25% of the country’s electricity was generated by coal but that by 2030 its energy supply would be completely reliant on other sources.
Mr Fallon said: “The economic outlook for coal generation is poor. Our analysis is consistent with that outlook and shows that unabated coal generation will make up just 7% by 2020, 3% by 2025 – that’s of total generation – and probably 0% by 2030.
“There is no evidence at the moment of a large number of coal plant operators planning to upgrade their plants but we should not this afternoon rule out the possibility that one or two might do so.
“We have examined in the department a scenario where all coal stations are closed by 2025, the results have showed that the average household electricity bill would be around 3% to 4% higher, or around £22 to £28 higher in the 2020s as a result.”
Tory backbencher Robert Syms warned that if the transition to other forms of power was too quick, it would be difficult to ensure that Britain was able to generate the energy it needed.
The MP for Poole said: “If we are not careful, whoever forms the next government… will find themselves having a very real problem and I don’t want to find a situation where the Chancellor of the Exchequer is standing at the despatch box, not talking about tax, not talking about how the economy will grow, but actually talking about constraints because we haven’t invested in providing power and for a future growing successful economy.
“I go back to the central point. We need to sweat the assets we have got, we need to keep them going until we are sure we have the capacity to keep the lights on.”
In an exchange with the Energy Minister, Mr Redwood (Wokingham) added: “Will you confirm that eight plants are closing under the EU directive already and that if any more plants have to close the lights might go out?”
Mr Fallon replied: “You are absolutely right that we need urgently to replace the capacity that is coming off the system. Coal, you will know, currently accounts for around a quarter of our reliable generating capacity but this is set to decline very rapidly over the coming years.”
The Commons debate came as MPs discussed changes to the Government’s Energy Bill which had been made by peers in the House of Lords.
One of the changes would give the Government the power to close or limit the output of any power station that did not comply with an EU directive on carbon emissions.
But Mr Fallon said it was necessary that some of the most efficient and cleanest coal-fired power stations were allowed to operate. It did not make sense, he said, to impose further restrictions which could deter investors from supporting the sector.
The Government successfully overturned the Lords amendment by 318 votes to 236, majority 82.
Tory former energy minister Charles Hendry said the Lords proposals would increase the risk to Britain’s energy supply by bringing forward the closure of power plants without speeding up the opening of new ones.
Mr Hendry said that in itself would make it more difficult for Britain to meet decarbonisation targets.
He said: “Do we really, with the challenge we face now, want to be linking ourselves with a policy which would be bringing forward the closure of plant but would do nothing to speed up the opening of new plant?
“It is bound to enhance the energy security challenges facing this country, that itself will make it more difficult to decarbonise, and that in itself will push up prices.”
The Green Party’s Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) said the Government’s rejection of the Lords amendment was inconsistent with tackling climate change and with ministers’ previous statements.
She said Energy Secretary Ed Davey was committed to getting rid of coal unless carbon capture storage (CCS) was developed to be commercially viable but his position on the amendment was perverse because it would discourage development of CCS.
She said: “The coalition’s rejection of what I would say is a moderate and common sense amendment is inconsistent with tackling climate change and inconsistent with what ministers have proclaimed in the past. It’s little wonder then that trust in politicians is so low.”
She went on: “Mr Davey must know that it is also undermining efforts to prevent dangerous climate change if we allow existing coal fire power stations here to be exempt from emissions limits.
“There’s been much debate already this afternoon about carbon capture and storage and crucially Mr Davey has said that unless and until we get CCS commercially viable coal has no future.
“I don’t think an honest and equitable approach to the UK’s climate commitments gives any room frankly for coal in the future even with CCS because globally the emissions are still too high.
“But the perversity of his position is that by rejecting the amendment he is rejecting a change that would actually help encourage CCS.”
Tory Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) said the amendment would place an additional burden on an already under-pressure coal industry at a time when Britain’s energy capacity was running out.
He said: “What we see today is an attempt by the Opposition and the Lords to make it (the situation for coal) even worse.
“We have got the current situation where the EU are shutting many of the existing plants. We’re banning the construction of new ones. And what the Opposition want to do is bring a third deleterious thing to extend that ban on coal to part of the plants that the EU would allow to remain open if people spend vast amounts of money to comply with the industrial emissions directive.
“If they do that, Labour, the Lords, what they want to do is say ’well if you spend that money we’re going to put this additional burden’ with supposedly this pie in the sky CCS which is nowhere near to sensible commercial development in the UK or in reality we will force you to close down and drive up the price of electricity even further.”
Mr Reckless said ministers should ask the European Union to relax regulations so Britain could catch up and meet gaps in generation capacity.
He said: “If we say to the European Union, we have this problem, we are running out of capacity because we haven’t put the sensible plans in place for electricity we should have done, we used to have the most competitive electricity in the world, we’ve messed the whole thing up on just a cross-party basis, can we therefore just keep these plants open for a few more years?”
