The UK grid, focused on adding valuable renewable generation, will rely on natural gas–fired generation for many years to come. One of the most recent additions is the Langage Power Plant, designed for quick response and low load “parking” at night while remaining below air emissions limits. With an extraordinary architectural design that blends into the natural surroundings, Langage is now a local landmark.
The UK’s newfound interest in natural gas–fired electricity generation follows a decade of renewable energy development, principally wind farms, which followed an earlier “dash for gas” in the early 1990s. This build-pause cycle begins anew with the recent construction of several large gas-fired combined-cycle plants. The difference this time is their added ability to provide grid stabilization and spinning reserve services when integrated on the grid with wind energy.
The current gas-fired and renewable plants must also balance out the large number of plants scheduled for retirement over the next decade. The European Union (EU) has launched its Large Combustion Plant Directive (LCPD), which, in addition to setting emissions standards for power stations larger than 50 MW, requires power stations that don’t meet specified emissions standards to either add the necessary air quality equipment (“opt-in”) or close down (“opt-out”) by a date certain. Facilities that opt out of the standards can operate for a maximum of 20,000 hours after January 2008 and must shut down by 2015. Currently, about 11 GW of opt-out coal- and oil-fired stations are scheduled to close by 2015 and about 20 GW of opt-in coal-fired stations will have restricted operation post-2016. In addition, around 7 GW of nuclear power generation capacity is scheduled to close between now and 2020.
To fill the coming gap, over the past five years the UK has constructed six new gas-fired combined-cycle power plants, four of which were installed by Alstom under engineer-procurement-construction (EPC) contracts: Langage (878 MW), Grain (1,275 MW), Staythorpe (1,650 MW), and Pembroke (2,160 MW). Each of these KA26 plants includes unique features, such as high operational flexibility or district heating, and all used state-of-the-art, high-efficiency GT26 combustion turbines. Since 1990, Alstom has built and commissioned 16 combined-cycle power plants in the UK, including these four, totaling over 12 GW and accounting for more than 40% market share.
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