19 September 2003
Electricity distributors' contingency plans are not yet robust enough to deal effectively with all aspects of a major power failure should severe weather hit the UK again this winter, the Department of Trade and Industry has admitted.
Giles Scott of the DTI's Engineering Inspectorate told the Commons' trade and industry select committee this week that, while he was confident that distributors would perform better than they did during last year's storms, it would be some years before all approached the performance of the best.
Although tree-cutting programmes and network reorganisation were under way, it would take time for these changes to make a difference, Scott said.
High winds hit much of southern England and Wales last October causing widespread damage to electricity distribution networks. About 2 million customers were deprived of power and supplies were not fully restored until nine days later.
The DTI committee is assessing distributors' progress in addressing the problems highlighted by these events.
MPs were particularly critical of the distributors' failure to communicate effectively with their customers during the blackout. Committee chair Martin O'Neill said it was 'astounding ' that EDF Energy, the main distributor concerned and the largest in the UK, had failed to think through its emergency communications strategy with sufficient rigour.
Paul Cuttill, EDF's chief operating officer, told the committee that the company had taken on board the lessons of October 2002 and appointed an emergency planning manager as well as assigning 'storm roles' to all staff, making full use of their skills and expertise. These changes had resulted in an improved response to a further weather-related power cut that affected eastern England in January and left 100,000 people without electricity, he said.
But Carole Pitkeathley of the consumer watchdog Energywatch told the MPs that distributors were still not doing enough to improve their emergency performance and that EDF in particular had failed to put robust communications strategies in place.
She said that during last month's power failure in London, the company did not tell Energywatch anything until 90 minutes after power had been restored, thereby preventing the watchdog from putting its customer contact centre on alert.
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