It’s been a day when power has been front and centre of the UK news agenda.
The first projects from state-owned GB Energy were expected to grab the headlines, including £10m of ‘metro partnerships’ to build clean power across the country. But the story was pushed down the agenda by a fire that has closed London’s Heathrow Airport and impacted 62,000 customers directly, alongside the travel plans of millions around the world.
Fires can happen anytime and anywhere, but quite why an electricity substation blaze close to the airport premises should bring the UK’s leading airport to a halt will be a subject of investigation. It raises questions around back-up power, energy storage and “infrastructure resilience” at times of heightened geopolitical tensions.
Large sites like Heathrow have multiple connections through the distribution network (run by SSE Networks in that area) to the big National Grid Substations.
For whatever reason, the airport’s back-up systems either failed to kick in or were not up to the task, preventing the airport from returning to a normal scheduled operation. Airport officials have so far said the that the systems they have “worked as expected”. Disconnection of potentially healthy supply circuits in the substation will have been necessary to enable the firefighters put out the fire, which will have contributed to the wider impact.
Dr David Laverty, Reader, School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Queen’s University Belfast, said, “This isn’t just an airport problem – any large facility relying on a single substation could suffer a similar fate. Heathrow was particularly unlucky this time, but the incident raises questions about the resilience of power infrastructure supporting other critical sites.”
There have been claims made today that Heathrow has been in the process of moving from diesel back-up generators to biomass, working alongside the grid.
“Their Net Zero-compliant back-up system has completely failed in its core function at the first time of asking,” said Reform Deputy Leader Richard Tice, speaking on a TV news channel.
In some ways, the two events are more interconnected than first appears.
The UK’s Secretary of State for Energy Security and Climate Change Ed Miliband was at pains to stress on the radio earlier on Friday the importance of remaining steadfast in relation to the renewables agenda, amid escalating demands to tone down Net Zero targets, in order to build energy security and cut fossil fuel use.
Heathrow, for its part, will presumably soon look to review its back-up power sources, including more sustainable alternatives to diesel generators.
Jonathan Maxwell, Chief Executive at Sustainable Development Capital, said the incident highlights the pressing need for decentralised energy systems. “They’re more efficient, lower cost and lower carbon, and in a situation like this, you have the resilience and energy security to carry on operating.”
Prof Martin Kuball, Professor of Physics at the University of Bristol, and a Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies, said the incident highlights how there is no resilience built into the National Grid.
“In part, this is because we still rely on old technology in substations that use copper windings to distribute power rather than new technology, so-called solid state transformers,” he said.
“The challenges are recognised, so we are at the forefront of developing these devices and working with industry for their commercialisation but it will be some years away, between five to 10, before we can fully move away from the existing power provision.”
Investigators will consider a wide range of causes. With ageing transformers, insulation gas can degrade and cause explosions.
Many airports around the world are now exploring hydrogen as back-up power, and looking at hydrogen microgrids where electrolysers store excess gas which can be accessed when needed.
Frankfurt Airport, for example, is testing hydrogen fuel cells as a reserve supply for its terminals and ground operations. Toulouse-Blagnac Airport, part of the HyPort project, is installing hydrogen-powered back-up systems; and Singapore Changi is also considering hydrogen for back-up power and vehicle applications.
The challenges that attach to hydrogen back-up being adopted include infrastructure costs, safety regulations, efficiency and storage. But should they be overcome, hydrogen could be an invaluable tool in airports’ crisis armoury, when disruption occurs.
