On 9th August, over a million homes were left without electricity and rail networks were at a standstill due to a lighting strike. The strike caused a series of power plant failures and the worst blackout in a decade!
Preventing a repeat of such an occurrence by running more back up power plants could cost consumers around £1billion per year according to National Grid boss, John Pettigrew.
According to the times, Mr Pettigrew went on to say that holding 2,000 megawatts of back-up power instead of the 1,000MW it had on that particular day could have prevented the power cuts. However, by the company’s calculation, it could cost up to an additional £1 billion a year to achieve that.
It would result in more power plants, which would be required to be kept running below capacity, so that in an emergency they could rapidly increase output. This could result in an additional £12 to a typical household bill.
Source: http://bit.ly/2ktzBPh
For more information, please contact Ben Hastings at Toro Recruitment on 01329 554 304