From July 2012, the Monthly, seasonal and annual climate summaries for the UK will report the anomaly value (the difference from or percentage of average) using the 1981-2010 period. In the summaries from January 2011 onward, the 1971-2000 anomalies are gradually being replaced with the new period 1981-2010.

Last Updated: 26 February 2013, the times they are a changin'

SOx, NOx and CO2 regulations in the UK are only part of the problems faced by would-be proper power station constructors in the UK.

There are new fuel taxes coming in on 1 April 2013, and apparently these will increase year on year. These cannot be readily passed on to consumers so will reduce any profits made.

The ever increasing intermittent wind penetration is eating into the number of revenue generating operating hours available to coal and gas fired proper power stations in order to keep the grid balanced, so income is collapsing year on year.

If the coal-fired power stations which were opted-in to LCPD from 1 January 2008 wish to continue running beyond 1 January 2016 under the new IED regulations then the 35 x 500MW units require an investment of about £2 billion pounds just to deal with NOx never mind those units which need to have their FGDs up-graded (or even installed for the first time) to meet the new SOx regulations, which would cost further hundreds of millions of pounds. Drax, about 4GW , is moving to wood-pellets to avoid the retro-fitting costs that the coal-fired plants are facing, and in due course they will become subsidy farmers!

Of course, the option is available to continue running under the old regulations but that comes with a 17,500 hours limit.

The other factor is that these units will be between 43 and 48 years old by 2015, being operated well past their design life span of 35 years.

I have a horrible feeling that the UK should steel itself for the nightmare scenario where, on 31 December 2015, 16GW of coal-fired capacity just closes down for good because there is no business case to continue generating electricity.

Just now coal is providing 21GW to the grid.

On 1 April 2013 the coal-fired capacity will down be 22GW, down from 27GW on 1 December 2012.

Phillip Bratby said:

Can anyone tell me under what EU rules or directives the UK has to close several coal-fired power stations this year (LCPD) whilst Germany will open 5.3GW of new coal-fired power stations?

That is entirely down to UK politics. The new German coal power stations will be clean enough when it comes to nitrogen and sulphur emissions to pass LCPD requirements. The old UK coal power stations won't be so are being closed. The only thing preventing new coal power in the UK is the UK.

The Emissions Performance Standard requires new power to have CO2 emissions of 450g/kwh or lower. This is too clean even for new coal but there is an exemption if CCS is installed. To the central planners this would have spurred on the development of CCS without having to throw much taxpayer money at it. In the real world the energy producers have either not bothered and are looking to close plants or they are going down the route of burning biomass. The regulatory hurdle is too high.

Germany needs the additional power plants:
http://news.sky.com/story/1058724/berlins-new-airport-cant-switch-lights-off