The National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) announced recently that the United Kingdom might face planned power outages during the winter months of this year. They warned on the edge of caution, saying it would be improbable, but the risk is still there.
A blackout is a total failure of the power supply due to an imbalance of power generated and power consumed. The term blackout tends to be used when there is a large-scale service interruption. A planned blackout is when areas of the grid are manually switched off to prevent a significant breakdown of the grid — which can take days to fix.
The planned blackouts would be a possible solution if our gas power plants could not keep up with demand due to the energy crisis. If, in the unlikely event that they did occur, they would be the first planned blackouts since the 1970s — households and businesses could expect to see three-hour outages at a time.
In response to the National Grid’s warning, Prime Minister Liv Truss announced that the United Kingdom “can get through winter” as we have “good energy supplies”. However, she did not guarantee that we wouldn’t see any power outages.
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Typically, Britain has one of the most reliable power networks in the world and the only times it faces issues is when storms or other natural disasters cut cables. But, this winter, our gas generators may not be enough to keep the grid running consistently.
This is partly due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the UK’s inability to import energy from France, Belgium and the Netherlands. However, National Grid has informed us that they have plans in place to tackle the issue:
If the National Grid did carry out blackouts, it would affect the nation. The National Grid would give areas of the UK one or two days’ notice before cutting them off for up to three hours at a time. This would affect both households and businesses alike.
The National Grid would notify local and regional distributors first, and the distributors would then decide which areas faced power blackouts and which didn’t depend on how much energy needed to be saved at that time. The government may be tasked with helping people to ration their energy use or advise them on how to use less — similar to the hose pipe ban which took place over the summer.
You can help the National Grid to prevent power outages this winter by using your electricity sensibly and trying to avoid peak energy use times. Here are some ways you can help:
If, in the unlikely event that there are planned blackouts, we would recommend that you follow our checklist of things to do below to ensure your safety:
We spoke to Jonny Christie and Karl McArdle, co-CEOs of The Property Buying Company, about their thoughts on how to prepare for electric power outages.
Karl said “At the moment in time there is no need to worry about power outages in the United Kingdom, it’s just important that people understand that the risk of them happening is there, and also in case it does happen, how they can prepare for it.”
“The best thing the general public can do is make sure they have plenty of warm clothes, their homes are properly insulated and they have strategies ready for when their fridges and freezers are turned off. Because many people are bulk cooking and freezing due to the cost of living crisis, there could be a massive amount of wasted food — so it’s vital that people utilise ice baths and cold storage areas to keep their food frozen.”
Jonny went on to say “I think it’s also important to note that businesses should do as much as they can in order to help with preventing blackouts over the winter. If this means that they use generators or even just make sure they aren’t adding to the demand at peak times.”
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Tom is Digital Content Writer passionate about sustainable property & property trends. Regardless of the subject, he will always write blogs of the best calibre. Read more about Tom here.
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