Ofgem has opened investigations into five companies which secured contracts in last year’s capacity auction.
The regulator’s investigation centres on whether the companies have all necessary planning consents for proposed generators allocated contracts in the so-called t-4 auction in December.
The capacity market, which operates via auctions, is designed to reward generators for making plant available when it is needed and bring forward investment in new plant.
The first capacity auction (so-called T-4 because it secures capacity to be supplied in four years’ time) took place just before Christmas. It procured 49.26GW of capacity at a clearing price of £19.40kW.
Ofgem said today that it was investigating whether GF Power Peaking Ltd, Berangere Ltd, Adret Ltd, Alkane Energy UK and Power Balancing Service Ltd provided false or misleading information to National Grid, which runs the annual capacity auction.
The regulator said that the investigations did not imply that it had made any findings about non-compliance, but cited potential issues around planning consents in each case.
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