The analysis for Drax was carried out by researchers at Imperial College London as part of the company’s quarterly electricity insights report.

Iain Staffell, an electricity systems expert at Imperial College London, said: “Much of Britain’s conventional power generators like coal and nuclear stations have retired in recent years.

“Fewer dispatchable generators means less competition and higher prices, making cheaper electricity from the Continent much more attractive to import. 

“The Government must be mindful of the need to retain sufficient dispatchable generation capacity on our system for both energy security and affordability reasons as it works towards its ambition of having a clean power grid by 2030. 

“Britain is always going to need weather-proof sources of power to keep the lights on.”

However, Mr Staffell added that interconnectors could also help to boost British energy security if domestic power generation was sufficiently maintained. 

If Labour succeeds in reaching its targets to make the national power grid net zero by 2030, for example, he said there would be so much generation available that much of it would be available for export, bringing money into the UK. 

He said: “Being able to either store this power at home through more storage capacity or selling it abroad is an attractive proposition. 

“During periods of high winds in the North Sea but calmer weather on the Continent, exporting power could be potentially lucrative for the UK and help to lower bills for consumers here.”