A series of industry-wide climate impact assessments were submitted to DECC in December 2010. Forming part of the national risk assessment, the work investigated the potential for weather to impact our generation business across the UK, particularly the possibility of causing a loss of supply.
The work was co-ordinated by a committee of the Association of Electricity Producers and centred around three scenarios – a national flood, heatwave and drought. In all cases, the investigation concluded that the weather scenarios were unlikely to give rise to a national deficit in electricity supply.
As part of our response to a changing climate, we’ve developed a methodology for assessing risks at our current assets which has been successfully piloted at our Connah’s Quay site on Deeside, and subsequently applied to three further sites in the south east - Isle of Grain Combined Heat and Power, Taylors Lane and Enfield. We carried out assessment of our remaining sites in early 2011. Our next step is to consider responses to any potential threats across our assets.
We also worked with the Energy Networks Association (ENA) and contributed to the final draft of the national-level Climate Change Adaptation Report for electricity transmission and distribution businesses. This report identifies the effects of current and possible future impacts of climate change and examines the climate thresholds above which climate change will pose a threat to electricity distribution businesses.