The UK’s gas storage is “materially behind” Europe, the chief executive of British Gas owner Centrica has said.

Chris O’Shea said there was a need to expand gas storage and his company was seeking to bring the UK’s largest gas facility to full capacity, but the efforts did not have government regulatory agreement.

While the UK is in a “far better” position than last year when it comes to gas reserves, Mr O’Shea said, there is currently only capacity to store gas for 12 days – double the amount that could be stored last year.

The amount is dwarfed by European neighbours. Germany 90 days’ worth of storage, France has 123 days, the Netherlands has 110.

A full-capacity Rough, a gas storage facility located in the North Sea off the coast of the East Riding of Yorkshire, could store 21 days’ worth of gas.

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It comes as the National Grid Electricity Systems Operator (ESO) confirmed it will have no coal-fired power as back-up this winter, if needed, to help keep the lights on. There were five contingency units to call on last winter, used once in March when a cold snap hurt wind generation.

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When asked about the weaning away from emergency coal power, Mr O’Shea said there may not be enough gas to power the country.

“If we have a very cold spell in the winter, along with no wind, then we may not have enough gas-fired generation to generate the electricity… we need a lot of technologies to have a resilient electricity system”.

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