Very clear report from @ng_eso to @ofgem on the 9th August #powercut ofgem.gov.uk/system/files/d…. Few takeaways:
Generation was lost from three sources in quick succession: local, small-scale generators, two units of Hornsea one wind farm, and Little Barford gas-fired power station
The implication is that all three were triggered by a lightning strike on a transmission line just south of the Little Barford station. This caused the local generation to trip out, which would be expected (and easily covered - 500MW)
The circuit returned to normal, so... the connection between the lightning strike and the subsequent loss of power at the two big generators isn't clear
Little Barford failed in stages - three units shutting down sequentially. Looks like any one of those not happening might have prevented the wider disruption
However... headline figures suggest that protection systems did then work as intended. Distribution networks were given the all-clear to reconnect within 15 minutes of the lightning strike, and all customers were reconnected within 30 mins of that
Supplies to electric rails/powerlines of railways were not affected, the report says. Disruption seems to have been caused by some minor signalling outages, and mainly trains shutting themselves down and drivers not being able to restart them
So we seem to be left with five significant questions: 1) why did the lightning strike affect big generators, 2) do NG/DNOs procure enough backup routinely (and has Ofgem been encouraging/mandating enough), 3) could the Little Barford units have stayed on,
4) can customers that should be priorities (eg railway signalling) be better prioritised, and 5) why did such a short outage provoke such disruption on the railways?
Ofgem has now announced its own inquiry, to see whether any of the parties involved (generators, transmission, distribution) were at fault ofgem.gov.uk/publications-a…
Which is fine - but avoids the issue of whether @ofgem itself has been at fault. Has it been tough enough with DNOs? Has it encouraged or retarded deployment of eg batteries which can respond virtually instantaneously? This ought to be on the agenda somewhere
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