Source: BBC Look North
URL: N/A
Date: 04/04/2019
Event: "If we want to keep the lights on, we should be investing in wind and solar"
Credit: BBC Look North
People:
Luxmy Gopal: Good evening. A petition signed by more than 90,000 people has been handed in to the government, calling for plans for a new gas-fired power station in North Yorkshire to be rejected. Drax says it needs to build the plant to make the UK's electricity supply more resilient. Environmental campaigners claim that if given the go-ahead, it will cross-subsidise continued burning of climate-damaging biomass long into the future. The government won't make a decision until the autumn.
Duncan Law: If we want to keep the lights on, we should be investing in wind and solar and not in burning more fossil fuels, and we certainly should not be subsidising burning fossil fuels. We need, in the 21st century, very urgently to move beyond burning, and Drax can't get that into its head.
Luxmy Gopal: Well, the chief executive of Drax, Andy Coss, told me earlier new high-efficiency gas stations would reduce emissions and provide energy security.
Andy Coss: So what we see is more intermittent renewables coming on to the system, like wind and like solar, and we see ourselves at Drax as backing up the system when the wind's not blowing and the sun's not shining, and the way we will do that is with highly efficient, highly flexible gas turbines.
Luxmy Gopal: Now campaigners say that these turbines will will actually produce more capacity than is needed.
Andy Coss: Well, first of all we see this as a way to get our remaining coal units off the system as quickly as possible, and also we see it as replacing some of the older, less efficient gas, so we believe there is a need for some new gas build on the system and we believe having the most efficient and the most flexible units on the system, which we're looking to put in place at Drax, is the way to support the system and keep the lights on.
Luxmy Gopal: But isn't it more than what's needed, here?
Andy Coss: Well, there have been a number of consented projects - we're going through planning at the moment for our turbines. There are a number of others that have been consented but none have actually been built, so we do believe there is a case for building more. We believe we should be the most competitive because of our efficiency and our flexibility.
Luxmy Gopal: The government wants to ban new new homes from being connected to the gas grid after 2025 and that would seem to contradict the need for new gas-fired turbines, wouldn't it?
Andy Coss: The key is that wind and solar are low-carbon, they are renewable, which is great. But they don't always run, they're not always available and therefore we do need some backup on the system, which we see ourselves as doing through these new gas turbines.
Luxmy Gopal: Andy Coss, thank you.