Homes could face planned blackouts this winter, National Grid warns
manchestereveningnews.co.ukHouseholds might have blackout this winter if power plants cannot get enough gas to keep running, the National Grid has warned.
In what it called an “unlikely” scenario, the National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) said that households and businesses might face planned three-hour outages to ensure that the grid does not collapse.
Planned blackouts last hit the UK during the 1970s in response to the miners strikes and the oil crisis. There have also been major unplanned outages in storms, including in 1987 when over 1.5 million people were left in the dark.
But the lights will stay on this winter unless the gas-fired power plants that produced 43 percent of Britain’s electricity over the last year cannot get enough gas to continue operating. READ MORE:'You don't go from sitting in a pub to being shot dead by police in 10 minutes': Heartbroken family of Manchester-born man, 24, desperate for answers It is the most dire of three possible scenarios that the ESO laid out on Thursday (October 6) for how Britain’s electricity grid might cope with the worst global energy crisis for decades.
Read more on manchestereveningnews.co.uk