UK energy minister Charles Hendry Thursday approved a new 900 MW gas-fired power plant at Coryton in Essex, the government said in a statement. The plant is being built by InterGen at the London Gateway Logistics Park. It would cost around GBP600 million ($980 million) and be made up of two 450 MW units. It would take around three years to build, the government said.
Hendry said in a statement: "With a quarter of our electricity generating capacity shutting down over the next 10 years as older plants close, new power stations like Coryton will play a crucial part in the country's energy mix as we make a move towards a low carbon economy."
Hendry said the plant could be fitted with carbon capture equipment in the future.
"This station will be built carbon capture ready, which means that eventually CO2 emissions from the plant could be captured and transported for storage offshore," he said.
A spokesman for the government said that being built carbon capture ready meant that there would be "sufficient space" left on the site for capture equipment to be fitted in the future, that there were suitable geological areas for storage within reach and that there were no evident technical or economic barriers to retrofitting equipment in the future.
InterGen already operates an existing 800 MW gas-fired Coryton power station approximately 1 km east of the new plant site.
Government consents 5.5 GW since May 2010
The Department of Energy and Climate Change said that the total new capacity given consent by the government since the Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition came to power in May 2010 was 5.456 GW, or enough to power more than 7 million homes if developed.
However, not all power plants that have been given consent will actually be developed.
The government recently published its new energy strategy, seeking to replace aging coal and nuclear power plants due to be shut down over the next few years with a mix of new nuclear, renewables and back-up flexible gas plants.
But many of the crucial details of support mechanisms remain unconfirmed, such as exactly how long-term support for low carbon generation will be calculated, and which power market reference prices will be used in the processes.
Two of the big companies expected to develop new nuclear power plants in the UK, Germany's E.ON and RWE, have recently been dealt a blow in their home market, where Chancellor Angela Merkel has ordered an early close to all nuclear power plants in the wake of Japan's Fukushima disaster.
France's EDF, another big company expected to lead new nuclear development in the UK, recently admitted to further delays at its new nuclear power plant at Flamanville in France. Flamanville-3 is now expected to sell its first power in 2016, two years later than the schedule announced in 2010 and four years later than the plans when construction began in 2005.
Some politicians and analysts are concerned that if new nuclear power plants struggle to get off the ground, the UK could see its power sector dominated by a new "dash for gas" in which an increasing proportion of electricity comes from gas.
That could leave the UK vulnerable to increases in fossil fuel prices, and also leave it struggling to move to a largely zero-carbon power generation sector, which is seen as vital for the UK to hit its national carbon targets as a whole, including 80% cuts from 1990 levels by 2050.
In 2010, some 47% of UK electricity came from gas, 28% from coal, and 16% from nuclear, with hydro and other fuels at 4%, wind at 3%, oil at 1% and imports at 1%.
