As we move into Autumn, we are seeing the traditional upward movement in the gas and electricity markets. These increases can be put down to the price of oil climbing above $75/barrel for the first time since October 2008, partly due to the weakness in the dollar, but also due to the normal annual increase in demand as the colder weather begins to arrive in the northern hemisphere.

In addition to the required updating of many power plants and indeed the whole grid infrastructure, forecast to cost up to £200 billion, E-on have now postponed plans to build a new 1,700MW coal-fired plant. The above factors combined with others have negative impacts on the markets. The costs involved in the maintenance of plant will be reflected in end-users bills to some extent, and the possible reduction in potential capacity is never welcome news. However, the recently reported go-ahead given to start work on Britain’s largest biomass plant in Port Talbot which will output some 350MW is small, but very welcome, additional capacity.

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