EDF Energy to pay £6 million fine for breach of UK reporting rules

• 3 years ago (2020-12-17)
• David Flin

Europe 1061 Gas 373 Regulations 3

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UK energy regulator Ofgem has announced that EDF Energy has agreed to pay a £6 million fine for breaching British energy market reporting rules regarding its power plant availability. Ofgem monitoring found that EDF’s thermal generation unit (EDF ETG): “Regularly sent misleading singals to the National Grid electricity system operator (ESO) about the capabilities of its generation plant,” from September 2017 to March 2020.

It said that EDF Energy regularly inflated the minimum amount of power, the stable export limit (SEL), that the West Burton B plant could supply at times it did not plan to generate electricity. Ofgem said: “In many cases, this meant that the ESO had to purchase more energy from the plant than needed, when the plant was used to balance the system.”

EDF ETG admitted that it breached its obligations under Britain’s grid code and the Regulation on Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT), and agreed to make a voluntary payment of £6 million, Ofgem added. It said: “Ofgem has concluded that there is no merit in opening a formal investigation.”

EDF said in a statement: “Although the breach was inadvertent, and EDF ETG considered its approach would reduce costs for the electricity system operator, we should have done better.” It added that it took the issue “extremely seriously and apologises for the error.” It said that it had now changed its approach to ensure that it fully complied with regulations.