The UK Government has commissioned the independent National Energy System Operator to urgently investigate the power outage incident that impacted Heathrow Airport and the surrounding area.
A fire at a substation on Friday (21 March) near to the airport in West London lead to the closure of Heathrow due to a lack of power, which also resulted in thousands of cancelled flights. It wasn’t until Saturday that services were resumed.
Working with Ofgem, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is using Energy Act powers to formally launch the investigation. This follows the action taken at the weekend to restore power to all affected customers.
NESO’s investigation will support efforts to build a clear picture of the circumstances surrounding this incident and the UK’s energy resilience more broadly “so that it’s prevented from ever happening again”, the government said.
Further details on the scope of the investigation and its Terms of Reference will be agreed by the Energy Secretary, Ofgem and NESO and published in the coming days.
NESO are expected to report to DESNZ and Ofgem with initial findings within six weeks.
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said:
“The loss of power to the Heathrow area has caused major disruption to thousands of people and many businesses. We are determined to properly understand what happened and what lessons need to be learned.
“That is why working with Ofgem, I have today commissioned the National Energy System Operator to carry out an investigation into this specific incident and to understand any wider lessons to be learned on energy resilience for critical national infrastructure, both now and in the future.
“The government is determined to do everything it can to prevent a repeat of what happened at Heathrow. This review will be an important step in helping us to do so, as we deliver our Plan for Change.”
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said:
“This incident caused significant disruption but Heathrow, National Grid, and our emergency services have worked swiftly to get people travelling again.
“Heathrow is a massive airport that uses the energy of a small city, so it’s imperative we identify how this power failure happened and learn from this to ensure a vital piece of national infrastructure remains strong.
“Whilst Heathrow is back to business, some disruption is expected over coming days as things get back to normal so I encourage anyone travelling to check with their airlines and plan their journeys.”
Akshay Kaul, Director General for Infrastructure at Ofgem, said:
“Households and businesses should be able to have confidence in the resilience of critical national infrastructure, and Ofgem will work with the government and others to ensure NESO’s review goes as far as possible to ensuring steps are put in place to avoid any repeat of an incident of this scale in the future.”
“To the extent the review finds any breaches of standards or licence obligations, we will not hesitate to take action.”
NESO chief executive Fintan Slye said:
“NESO welcomes the government’s commission to review the power outage incident impacting Heathrow and surrounding areas.” We will now work with all relevant stakeholders to understand the lessons that can be learned to improve future resilience of Great Britain’s energy system.”
Image from Shutterstock
