Energy minister Kwasi Kwarteng has lowered the target for the upcoming T-4 capacity auction by 200MW to reflect procurement in the recent T-3 auction.
The T-3 was held as a replacement for last year’s T-4, which was cancelled following the suspension of the Capacity Market due to an EU court ruling.
The delivery body, National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) recommended cuts of 200MW to the targets for both auctions in November – the T-3 to 44GW and the T-4 to 43.3GW.
Andrea Leadsom, business and energy secretary at the time, accepted the changes the following month. However, she ignored its request to lower the target for the recently held T-1 auction from 300MW to zero.
At the beginning of February, the ESO recommended a further 200MW reduction to the target for the T-4 auction, which is due to kick of on 5 March, to account for the 215MW of capacity contracted for its first delivery year (2023/24) in the one-off T-3.
The T-3 auction, which was held at the end of January, was the first in which intermittent renewables secured agreements, with five onshore windfarms bagging contracts.
The T-1 auction took place earlier this month.
There were large surpluses in both the T-3 and T-1 auctions, resulting in low clearing prices of £6.44/kW and £1kW respectively.