This month’s blackout has been described as a “wake up call” for the energy industry by leading figure Paul Massara.
In an interview with Radio 4’s Today programme this morning (21 August), the ex-Npower chief executive said that the massive power cut raised questions about the resilience of the wider energy system.
‘Big questions’ have to be asked about what gets disconnected at the district network level and building more resilience into essential services like hospital and trains when power cuts happen, he said: “We need to look at how this all works together and ensure that it impacts consumers as little as possible.”
Massara said that while National Grid was “leading the way” on decentralising energy networks, it didn’t mean there were not “systematic resilience questions that have to be asked.”
But he said that the blackout was a “very rare” event which had been triggered by “highly exceptional circumstances.”
Massara also played down the suggestion that the generation companies, whose plant failures had triggered the blackout, should be punished by having to pay financial penalties.
National Grid’s Electricity System Operator (ESO) confirmed, in an interim report on the incident that was released by Ofgem yesterday, that it was triggered by a lightning strike on the Eaton Socon, Wymondley Main transmission circuit.
Immediately following the strike, it said the Hornsea offshore windfarm and Little Barford gas power station almost simultaneously reduced their energy supply to the grid, removing approximately 1.4MW of generation from the grid.
Both Ofgem and the department for business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS) have launched investigations into the power cut.