ESB plans to invest £750 million to build a new 1,500-megawatt (MW) gas-fired power plant in Britain which could start operating in 2018, the project's public affairs manager said today.
The power plant, which will run on modern combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) technology, will be on a former chemical works site at Knottingley near Leeds and will require around 1,100 workers during construction and create up 50 permanent jobs once operational.
Plant construction is expected to start in 2015 and Britain's infrastructure planning body, which manages applications of large infrastructure projects in Britain, said it expected the project's formal application in the first quarter of 2013.
Britain faces a power capacity squeeze in the middle of this decade as polluting coal plants and ageing gas plants shut down.
The UK government is in the process of addressing the supply issue and at the same time creating a less polluting energy sector by reforming its electricity market.
It has proposed to guarantee producers of low-carbon energy, which gas plants are excluded from, a minimum electricity price and building a system of back-up capacity to intermittent renewable energy, mainly aimed at gas plants.
"Final investment decisions are always made with reference to market conditions but we believe there is a market for new gas plants on this timescale in the current market or the one that will be created by EMR (Electricity Market Reform)," said Knottingley Power Public Affairs Manager Simon James.
Reuters
