Eggborough Power (EPL) is planning to close the 2,000MW Eggborough coal-fired power plant located in North Yorkshire, UK by the end of March 2016.

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The owner of the plant said that Eggborough plant will be closed as it is not cost competitive to operate the 53 year plant.

Eggborough Power will start consultation with employees and their representatives regarding the closure of the facility.

The facility is designed to supply power to around two million homes in the UK.

The closure decision, which would affect approximately 240 jobs, comes as the company is facing losses due to high carbon tax and low wholesale power prices and other market and regulatory conditions.

Eggborough plant requires additional funding of £200m to continue generating power over the next three years, the company said.

The decision comes as the company finds no feasible option for recovering operational costs for the Eggborough plant due to plunging power prices driven by lower commodity prices and the recent changes to the bidding rules for the government’s Supplemental Balancing Reserve (SBR).

The decision is also driven by the recent capacity market rules which would not support life extension investment for the power plant, the company noted.

Other potential challenges include potential environmental permits, effective from 1 January 2016, which place more constraint for the station on emissions, impact operational flexibility and reduce profitability.

Earlier, the company failed to secure government support to convert the power station to biomass facility.

Closure of the plant is subject to staff consultation exercise outcome and any further negotiations with government bodies.

Meanwhile, the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said that the closure would not affect the energy security of the county.

A DECC spokesperson said: "The government takes security of supply very seriously and has worked with National Grid to put in place an effective plan which is flexible enough to adapt to individual plant closures."


Image: The 53-year old Eggborough power station in North Yorkshire, England. Photo: courtesy of Mr T/Wikipedia.