2 blackout ‘scares’ in last 3 months as experts blame UK reliance on wind

THE power cut which brought chaos to large parts of Britain was caused in part by an over- reliance on wind energy, experts have warned.

The Mail on Sunday can also reveal there have been two other sharp drops in energy supply in the past three months alone – as a leading expert warned that blackouts will become ‘increasingly frequent’.

With the country still reeling from the power outage, which hit almost a million people on Friday afternoon resulting in widespread disruption to trains and roads, the National Grid pointed the finger of blame at the two foreign companies which own the affected power stations.

However, one of the firms in turn called for a probe by the National Grid and regulator Ofgem to find out where responsibility lies. Amid other developments: Ofgem has warned the National Grid it faces a fine of up to ten per cent of its turnover after the power failure;

Bosses at Ipswich Hospital are investigating why back-up generators failed.

Renewables UK, which promotes wind power in the EU, boasted on its

‘This is going to become increasingly frequent’

Twitter account that wind was generating 47.6 per cent of our electricity – just hours before the blackout occurred. The National Grid then retweeted the message with the words ‘It’s Wind o’clock’.

The power cut across England and Wales was caused by two power stations shutting down almost simultaneously just before 5pm.

A gas-fired power station in Little Barford, Bedfordshire, owned by German company RWE, was the first to fail, at 4.53pm. Within minutes, the Hornsea offshore wind farm in the North Sea, run by Denmark’s Orsted, also ‘lost load’ – meaning the turbines were moving but power wasn’t reaching the grid.

The National Grid was unable to cope with the loss of power, forcing it to cut demand in large areas to protect the rest of the system.

The blackout lasted for an hour, leading to cancellations and delays on at least 14 rail networks and stopping road traffic lights from working. Astonishingly, the National Grid has insisted its own systems had ‘worked well’.

Ofgem has already threatened the company with a possible fine and yesterday said it had received a summary report from the company into the causes of the failures.

RWE has also called for an investigation into the ‘ wider system issues’, adding such failures ‘are not uncommon in power stations’.

One expert, Jeremy Nicholson, of energy firm Alfa, said he feared there might be worse to come because of Britain’s growing use of renewable energy.

‘Has the National Grid been taking the actions that are necessary to keep the lights on when there’s not much conventional generation on the system?’ he added. ‘This is going to be increasingly frequent in future as our dependence on wind and solar grows.’

Data seen by The Mail on Sunday has also revealed there were two significant drops in the stability of the UK’s electricity supply in May and June. Last year, the UK generated 33 per cent of its electricity from renewable energy sources, up from 6.5 per cent in 2010.

Energy experts said using coal and gas power stations makes it easier to cope with fluctuations and outages because they hold more latent capacity – known as ‘inertia’ – in their systems.

Mr Nicholson said of the two incidents earlier this year: ‘It wasn’t quite outside of the operational range but if it had been slightly tougher and one or two other things had gone wrong then we would have been in similar territory.

‘Because there was so much wind and solar on the system, there was very little conventional generation – coal and gas – which provides inertia that helps stabilise the frequency of the grid. The system s hould have coped. So when National Grid say things like, “the system worked” and that the power blackouts didn’t spread, that’s like a doctor saying the operation was a success but the patient died. It’s not much comfort to consumers.’

The last major power cut came in 2008 when hundreds of thousands of homes were affected after two power stations similarly went offline within minutes of each other.

Friday’s blackout affected about 300,000 UK Power Networks customers in London and the South East between 4.53pm and 5.21pm.

Western Power Distribution said that 500,000 customers in the Midlands, South West and Wales were left without power until after 6pm.

Northern Powergrid had 110,000 affected customers and Electricity North West another 26,000.

At Ipswich Hospital, journalist Vikki Irwin said her seriously ill mother was about to have a CT scan when the power failed, leaving her stuck for 15 minutes as a lift didn’t work. No patients were harmed.

A National Grid spokesman said: ‘We appreciate the disruption and investigations have continued to better understand the situation.’