UK Business Gas Suppliers:

UK business gas suppliers will be happy today after the announcement from Ofgem that it has issued the first ever license to build a new gas storage facility under the Irish Sea.  It is reported that over twenty redundant salt caverns will be used to store UK gas supplies for future use. 

Each one will be approximately the size of the Royal Albert Hall and will go along way towards increasing the storage capacity for the UK gas market.  It is estimated that the caverns could hold about five days of gas consumption, which would add about a third on to the existing 11-days current capacity.

They are a common geological feature naturally filled with salt, which will be leached out, leaving space for gas to be pumped in. Such caverns are already used on land.

Recent supply and demand situations such as the recent cold weather have helped to highlight the issues regarding the lack of gas storage in the UK.  And with more dependence on abundant healthy gas supplies to supply gas fired power stations it couldn’t have come at a better time for large commercial gas users.

Business Gas customers have been recently been effected by the lack of storage when their gas supplies were cut off last month to divert the supply to energy generators to ensure we had enough supply of electricity.

The government along with the regulator Ofgem, have been aware that the lack of gas has been one of the biggest threats to the UK’s energy security.

This project may help to encourage other companies to invest in long term commercial gas storage which would help to ease supply and demand factors that have a strong influence on uk gas prices.

Do you think we should have more gas storage in the UK?