Nuclear Power Alan Simpson To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what proportion of generating capacity was out of service in UK nuclear power stations in each of the last 10 years. Malcolm Wicks Planned or unplanned closures of this nature are commercial and/or technical decisions for the companies that own and operate the power stations to take in conjunction with the relevant health and safety authorities. My Department therefore does not keep records of the operating decisions of individual power stations. However, information on plant load factors is available. The load factor is actual generation for a given year taken as a percentage of theoretical maximum potential generation. It is impossible for any power station to generate at full capacity throughout the year. There will be periods when it will not generate owing to lack of demand, routine maintenance and unplanned repairs. The load factors for UK nuclear power stations for the most recent 10 years for which data are available are as follows: --------------------------------------------------------- | |Percentage| --------------------------------------------------------- |1997 |79.1 | --------------------------------------------------------- |1998 |80.1 | --------------------------------------------------------- |1999 |77.5 | --------------------------------------------------------- |2000 |70.5 | --------------------------------------------------------- |2001 |76.1 | --------------------------------------------------------- |2002 |75.1 | --------------------------------------------------------- |2003 |77.8 | --------------------------------------------------------- |2004 |71.8 | --------------------------------------------------------- |2005 |72.4 | --------------------------------------------------------- |2006 |69.3 | --------------------------------------------------------- |Source: Digest of UK Energy Statistics, BERR| | ---------------------------------------------------------