14th Aug 2019 12:19
(Alliance News) - The UK government on Wednesday said it will investigate the actions of electricity operator National Grid PLC after power cuts.
Almost one million people in England and Wales were cut off from electricity on Friday last week after issues with two generators. Duncan Burt, operations director at National Grid, explained that the two power stations disconnected from the grid "near simultaneously".
On Wednesday the Energy Emergencies Executive Committee said it will establish what happened to cause the outage and whether or not correct procedures were followed. It will consider whether improvements are needed to prevent future power cuts and to better respond if they do occur, including minimising the impact on people and essential services.
The Energy Emergencies Executive Committee is a partnership between government, the regulator and industry. It co-ordinates resilience planning across the energy industry in the UK.
The committee met on Monday and will provide a report on initial findings within five weeks to the secretary of state for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy. It will then submit a comprehensive report within 12 weeks.
"Friday's power outages caused significant chaos and disruption to hundreds of thousands of people. National Grid is urgently reviewing what happened and will shortly report to Ofgem to consider what action may need to be taken," said Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom.
"National Grid has already confirmed that the incident was not linked to the variability of wind power, a clean, renewable energy source that the government is investing in as we work towards becoming a net zero emissions economy by 2050. Friday's incident does however demonstrate the need to have a diverse energy mix," added Leadsom.
Shares in FTSE 100-listed National Grid were trading 0.2% higher on Wednesday in London at 839.10 pence each.
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