T-1 Capacity Market 2024/25
By Paul Homewood
h/t idau
The results of the T-1 Capacity Market Auction have just been announced.
The T-1 Capacity Market Auction for the 2024/25 delivery year concluded yesterday (20 February) after eight rounds clearing at £35.79/kW/year – 40% less than the £60/kW/year cleared in the 2023/24 auction.
This was confirmed this morning by Georgina Morris, head of capacity market policy – low carbon technologies for the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), on the second day of Solar Media’s Energy Storage Summit 2024 (ESS24).
The provisional results show that roughly 9.5GW of de-rated capacity entered this year’s auction with less than 300MW exiting in the first seven rounds.
Jake Thompson, data scientist at energy data analyst’s Montel EnAppSys pointed out that the c.819MW Sutton Bridge and c.850MW Severn power stations (the two largest units in the auction) both exiting, removing their collective c.1.5GW of capacity from the auction and causing it to clear. This meant that the 7.6GW of capacity was awarded across a total of 277 capacity market units (CMUs)
“T-1 auction for the 2024/25 delivery year, we procured 7.6GW of capacity and they cleared in round eight at £35.7p,” Morris confirmed at ESS24 during the UK Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) panel this morning.
According to the National Grid ESO’s preliminary results, the majority of capacity was awarded to gas as a primary fuel type 2,943.79MW (38.53%), closely followed by nuclear 2767.26MW (36.22%) Demand-Side Response (DSR) was then awarded the third largest volume of capacity at 9.29%.
The T-1 is just a top up for capacity needed next winter.
Most of the capacity bought has already been auctioned at T-4, ie four years beforehand.
Of the 7.6 GW procured at T-1, 5.6 GW is firm capacity, gas and nuclear. This can be added to 26.4 GW and 2.0 GW of gas and nuclear at T-4.
Nobody in official circles seems to question where they will get this 30 GW from when gas power stations are shutdown in 2030 (Labour party policy).
As it is, two existing CCGTs, Sutton Bridge and Severn, pulled out of the auction at Round 8. Both plants are mothballed, so clearly the capacity payment was not enough to make it worthwhile bringing them back to service.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I’m sure there’s a clever sod who understands these things and I have a (probably) dopey question. Onshore wind gets a mention but not offshore – what am I missing?
The report is incomplete. The full results can be found here
https://www.emrdeliverybody.com/Capacity%20Markets%20Document%20Library/T-1%20DY%202024-25%20Provisional%20Results%20v1.0.pdf
And when the wind stopped?
“In 2022, the wind didn’t blow enough or at all for 262 days.
And in those 262 days, we would have had rolling blackouts, or a full blackout across the UK if it wasn’t for gas.”
Jon Butterworth, chief executive of National Gas
“Nobody in official circles seems to question where they will get this 30 GW from when gas power stations are shutdown in 2030 (Labour party policy).”
The same place they’ll get all the food from when they’ve driven all the farmers out of business, of course!
it would be useful to have an interpretation of this bureaucratese!
The table dosen’t match the words. Nuclear is only 2039MW (36%) whereas Gas is 26446MW (38%).
So I am not sure what is correct and what is not.
I also didn’t realise that there was any “spare” Nuclear powere.
The spare nuclear power arises from extending the lives of power stations that were previously expected to close. The table that Paul shows relates to capacity previously signed up 4 years ago, which essentially shows that back then over half our nuclear was expected to close ahead of next winter. The article at Current relates to the top up auction just held. I linked to the detail above.
The nuclear extension is only temporary, so closure will contribute to capacity shortage in 2-3 years, which is why the T-4 auction about to be run is likely to clear at much higher prices, potentially costing consumers £3bn p.a. accordingto some estimates.
The reliance on Demand Side Response is a worry. It’s far from clear that even with large bribes consumers will volunteer in enough volume to have paid for power cuts. So we may just get the power cuts anyway.
No coal?? I thought Ratcliffe on Soar was still operating and open for business?
It must close in September.
They maybe small quantities but its farcical that solar and wind get anything here. This payment is for dispatchable generation if a system event is declared ie you must have the ability to deliver at 4hrs notice the power your being paid for. Mind you its basically a back door subsidy as a system event has never been declared.