The big six energy firm told the Competition and Markets Authority it “did not support” the inclusion of interconnectors in the capacity market “due to how these were being treated for these purposes”.
But Eon added that it “would be supportive of non-UK generation capacity” taking part in the UK capacity market. “Eon was interested to see how the interconnectors would be de-rated for the purposes of the auction, as an indicator of how reliably the interconnectors would perform,” it added.
RWE agreed in part, saying it thought the current arrangements for including interconnectors in the mechanism on the basis of their ownership is “flawed”.
“It ought to be possible to develop a model that would allow the generator on the other side of the interconnector to participate in the market rather than the owner of the interconnector itself,” the firm said.
Centrica said it had “concerns” about interconnectors being allowed to take part in the capacity auction, although it would be “wrong to completely exclude them”. However, it added that it was “difficult to assess” how much capacity an interconnector could really provide as this would “vary depending on energy consumption in other countries”.
EDF held a different view, insisting interconnectors “should be able to participate in the capacity mechanism”. The firm said the way that the costs of the capacity mechanism would be recovered from consumers was “efficient and fair”. However, it pointed out that this “would need to be tweaked as the system settled in”.