One of Britain’s biggest power stations has claimed that the Government refused to grant it a subsidy lifeline because of a “bias” for wind farms by Ed Davey, the Energy Secretary.
Eggborough coal plant, which generates 4 per cent of the UK’s electricity, says it will be forced to shut down next year without the green energy subsidies needed to convert to burning biomass material.
The Times revealed in December that the Department of Energy and Climate Change unexpectedly rejected the company’s application, leaving its £400 million conversion project, and its future, in tatters.
The power plant claimed that DECC officials had indicated that the project would qualify and that it fulfilled all the necessary criteria.
Executives have now broken their silence over the apparent sudden reversal. Paul Tomlinson, the chief operating officer, told Utility Week, the trade publication: “We are suffering a little bit from coalition and internal politics. We have got Ed Davey, who is out to support wind at the cost of other technologies such as ours.”
Eggborough was applying for the first tranche of green subsidies under the Government’s radical new energy market shake-up.
However, DECC has rationed the money available, which means that only some of the projects that applied would be successful. Officials gave the go-ahead to several offshore wind farms and a rival giant biomass conversion plant by Drax but not Eggborough.
Industry sources claim that Mr Davey intervened to block Eggborough’s application to prevent biomass projects taking up all of the subsidies and leaving nothing for offshore wind.
Eggborough’s closure, now scheduled for next year, would wipe out Britain’s wafer-thin reserve generating margin, raising the chances of blackouts.
A DECC spokesman said: “Business decisions are ultimately a matter for Eggborough’s owners. There has been a high level of interest in investment contracts for renewable electricity generation but we have always been clear that the budget would be limited.”
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