15th December 2016 | Posted by: Daniel Birkett | Market Analysis

The provisional results of the latest Capacity Market Auction were released last week, with the final results set to be announced in the New Year.

The provisional results from the latest round of the Capacity Market Auction (CMA) were announced last Friday, with a total of 52.4GW of capacity procured to provide the UK with additional energy, if required; The National Grid's publication of the provisional results is available  here.

The clearing price for this auction was higher than that in 2014 and 2015 at £22.50 kW/ year but still lower than some forecasts. The full results will be confirmed by the government in the New Year.

The publication shows that nearly 70% of the capacity secured in the auction comes from existing power stations, which is broken down as follows; Nuclear (7.8GW), Coal (6GW) and CCGT (23GW). However, despite the large percentage of existing projects, a significant increase in new generation from a range of sources was established.

Batteries were successful for the first time in the CMA, with over 500MW of capacity spread across a number of varying units. Meanwhile, 1.4GW of Demand Side Response was procured; almost three times last year's figure.

Two large-scale gas-fired power plants also obtained a 15-year capacity agreement; the two units were a 300MW OCGT plant in Spalding and a 333MW CCGT refurb project at King's Lynn.

Despite over 4GW of peaking plant generation prequalifying for the auction, only 1.3GW of was procured, while diesel generation was also lower than previous auctions; with less than 300MW of successful new build generators from the sector. This decrease indicates that the measures taken by the government to impose environmental regulations was having a clear impact.

Elsewhere, existing interconnectors with France, Netherlands and Ireland retained a 2.3GW share of the auction volume, while the new NEMO interconnector with Belgium, which is not expected to be completed until 2020 was unsuccessful with its bid.

The next round of auctions will take place from the 31st of January to procure energy security over Winter 2017/18.