The National Grid has put its emergency backup plan in place amid snowfall in large parts of the UK.

The network is facing a surge in demand, The Mirror reports, as the snow caused travel chaos and saw many schools shut earlier.

As a result, the National Grid has given notice to two of its reserve coal-fired power stations to be ready if called upon.

However, it is not likely they will need to be called upon, and it was clarified that people could continue to use energy "as normal".

On the Twitter account, the National Grid posted: "We've issued a notification to warm two winter contingency coal units. This measure should give the public confidence in Monday’s energy supply.

"This notification is not confirmation that these units will be used on Monday, but that they will be available to the ESO, if required.

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"The ESO as a prudent system operator has these tools for additional contingency to operate the network as normal and the public should continue to use energy as normal."

The instruction for the coal-fired plants marks the first since they were put on standby and comes as the grid said it will also run another test of its demand flexibility service – which pays customers to use less electricity during certain hours.

Demand on the network is set to peak between 5pm and 9pm, which is when the coal-fired plants would be used if necessary.