Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has ordered the National Energy System Operator (NESO) to “urgently investigate” the power outage caused by a substation fire that shut Heathrow Airport on Friday. The investigation will build a “clear picture of the circumstances surrounding this incident” and the UK’s “energy resilience more broadly” to prevent it “from ever happening again”, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said.
The fire at the North Hyde substation in west London that supplies power to the airport led to thousands of cancelled flights and stranded passengers across the world.
Miliband said he has commissioned the investigation to “understand any wider lessons to be learned on energy resilience for critical national infrastructure, both now and in the future”. NESO is expected to report to the power regulator Ofgem and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero in six weeks with its initial findings.
Heathrow closed in the early hours of Friday morning after the fire. The Met Police has said that counter-terrorism officers were “leading inquiries” but are not treating the incident as suspicious.
Nearly 1,400 flights were disrupted by the closure, according to air traffic website flightradar24.com. Around 120 flights were diverted elsewhere. Heathrow has announced a review of the airport’s response to the power outage and its crisis management plans will be undertaken by former Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly.
The airport said it was “open and fully operational” on Saturday morning, but the chaos has raised questions about the resilience of the major transport hub. Fifty slots were added to Saturday’s schedule to facilitate an extra 10,000 passengers travelling through it, the airport said.
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