By Chris Welby, Good Energy's Commercial Director

Last week E.ON's Chief Executive Paul Golby was featured in the Guardian, proclaiming the need to keep coal power stations burning. 

As you may have guessed, I have a slightly different opinion…

Paul Golby is right in saying that the UK faces a squeeze on generation capacity as we move towards de-carbonising the UK energy market. However, his solution of keeping old coal-fired power stations trundling along is not the answer.

This country is a victim of its own success in terms of fuel security.  The recent cold weather did not lead to cuts in electricity supplies to anyone (except where heavy snow brought down power lines); gas was cut to some industrial customers (who are financially compensated for their willingness to be cut off), not because of a gas shortage, but to relieve pressure on the pipelines moving gas round the country.  Our fuel security was not at risk.  The reduction in power from E-ON’s wind farms had no effect on supplies.

Why did we need so much gas?  Because as a nation we live and work in poorly insulated homes and offices and rely on fossil fuels for most of our heat requirements.  While much has been done to reduce the carbon from our power, our failure to tackle how we heat our homes and offices is the elephant in the room of renewable energy policy.

Paul Golby’s old, creaking coal power stations produce a lot of heat, and it goes straight up their cooling towers and into the atmosphere along with the carbon.  The sooner these inefficient icons of energy waste are closed the better, and if that means we have to be smarter and more frugal in our energy use, then so be it.