Britain Activates Coal-Fired Power Plants for Electricity...

by David Greenberg at The Financial Trends

For the first time this winter in Britain, the electric utility National Grid requested that coal-fired plants go on standby on Tuesday to be ready to generate power, as a late season cold-snap stretched generation capacity to its limits across the country.

After turning to Electricite de France for support on Monday, on Tuesday, the energy grid operator turned to its coal-fired plants to help increase capacity, preparing three more units to be ready to begin generation.

Although coal fired units have been prepared for operation several times in the course of this winter, this is the first time the grid operator has actually needed them…