Nationwide Grid boss claims Heathrow had ‘sufficient energy’ regardless of shutdown

The chief govt of Nationwide Grid has claimed that Heathrow Airport had sufficient energy from different substations regardless of Friday’s shutdown.

Round 1,300 flights had been affected after a hearth knocked out an electrical energy substation in Hayes on Thursday night. Operations weren’t in a position to resume till Friday night.

John Pettigrew from Nationwide Grid mentioned there have been two different substations “at all times out there for the distribution community corporations and Heathrow to take energy”.

In his first feedback because the disruption, Mr Pettigrew advised the Monetary Instances: “There was no lack of capability from the substations.

He added: “Dropping a substation is a novel occasion – however there have been two others out there.

“So that may be a degree of resilience.”

In response to the feedback, a Heathrow Airport spokesperson mentioned: “Because the Nationwide Grid’s chief govt, John Pettigrew, famous, he has by no means seen a transformer failure like this in his 30 years within the business.

“His view confirms that this was an unprecedented incident and that it could not have been potential for Heathrow to function uninterrupted.

“Tons of of crucial techniques throughout the airport had been required to be safely powered down after which safely and systematically rebooted. Given Heathrow’s measurement and operational complexity, safely restarting operations after a disruption of this magnitude was a big problem.”

Heathrow chief govt Thomas Woldbye beforehand mentioned a back-up transformer failed through the energy outage, which means techniques needed to be closed in accordance with security procedures so energy provides may very well be restructured from two remaining substations.

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However it has emerged {that a} report by consultancy agency Jacobs greater than 10 years in the past discovered a “key weak spot” of Heathrow’s electrical energy provide was “major transmission line connections to the airport”.

The doc, revealed in 2014, said “outages might trigger disruption to passenger, baggage and plane dealing with features”, and “might require closure of areas of affected terminals or doubtlessly your complete airport”.

In its appraisal of operational threat on the airport, Jacobs mentioned provision of on-site era and different measures to make sure resilient provide appeared “to be sufficient” to allow Heathrow “to resist and get better from interruptions to produce”.

The report added that the airport operated “inside threat parameters that aren’t extreme or uncommon for an airport of its sort”.

Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism officers initially led the investigation however the pressure mentioned the fireplace will not be believed to be suspicious so the London Hearth Brigade is now main the probe which can concentrate on {the electrical} distribution tools.

Heathrow is Europe’s largest airport, with greater than 83.9 million passengers travelling by means of its terminals in 2024. Round 200,000 passengers had been affected by Friday’s closure.