In the first significant defeat for the government, the House of Lords voted by 237 to 193 in favour of tighter curbs on coal generation.
Generators opting in to the Industrial Emissions Directive, which would allow them to stay open beyond 2023, will no longer be allowed to provide baseload power.
The owners of the UK’s remaining 12 coal power stations must decide next year whether to invest in pollution control kit to comply with the European directive. If they do so, they will be subject to an Emissions Performance Standard, limiting their annual carbon dioxide emissions.
Low coal prices and high gas prices have driven a shift towards coal generation in recent years, pushing up carbon dioxide emissions.
Labour peer Baroness Worthington, who introduced the amendment, said: “The owners of these stations ought to be fully aware that, as we move forward to a low-carbon economy, their stations will be the first to go. It is far and away the cheapest and most efficient way of reducing emissions, as theUKfound during the 1990s when we did exactly this and transitioned out of coal and into gas.”
Baroness Verma, the government’s spokesperson in the Lords, said the intervention risked damaging investor confidence and raising bills by forcing a move to more expensive forms of generation. The amendment is “unnecessary and could potentially have negative impacts”, she said.