Britain's spare power capacity will fall this winter to a seven-year low, forcing emergency measures to prevent blackouts, a report on Tuesday is expected to say.
A series of power plant breakdowns and closures in recent months have eroded the safety buffer between maximum supply and peak demand, the report from National Grid is likely to show.
I gather that ministers have been grilled on the subject on the Today programme this morning and I'll try to post some audio when this becomes available.
The National Grid report is here.
Peter Atherton tweets:
So basically if Hartlepool / Haysham dont return to service as planned before Chrismas, looks like reserve margin will be 0%.
I've attached audio excerpts from the Today programme below the main post.