Power Failures (Hansard, 7 October 2003)

§ Miss McIntosh:
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the effects of the recent power failures affecting London on the national economy; and what the possible causes of the power failures are. [132260]
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§ Mr. Timms
The major power failure affecting London and parts of Kent on the 28 August 2003 occurred at 18:20 and lasted 41 minutes. Due to the timing and duration of the interruption there was transport disruption that affected a large number of people travelling home at the end of the working day, however the Department of Trade and Industry has not conducted a formal assessment of the impact of the event on the UK economy.
According to National Grid Transco, the cause of the failure was the incorrect operation of a protective device at Wimbledon substation. My Engineering Inspectorate is currently carrying out a detailed investigation of the circumstances of the incident, including the impact on the transport infrastructure.

§ Miss McIntosh
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what recent assessment her Department has made of the cost of the loss of power through overhead power lines in terms of transmission costs compared to underground transfer; and what research she has commissioned to assess the amount of energy lost overhead and the impact on the cost and efficiency of such lines. [132261]

§ Mr. Timms
The National Grid Company (NGT) has indicated that losses from overhead lines are approximately 50 per cent. greater than for underground cables for power flows at the same voltage.
The cost of losses is not separately available for overhead lines and underground cables. However, NGT advise that total transmission losses (including overhead lines, underground cables and transformers) account for about 1.5 per cent. of energy transferred on the England and Wales transmission network or a cost of around £90 million p.a. (This compares with average losses on the distribution system of approximately 7 per cent.).
The available data indicate that replacing overhead lines with underground cables could not be justified by gains in efficiency, due to the significantly higher capital cost of underground cables.

§ Miss McIntosh
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment her Department has made of the risks to the United Kingdom of a major power failure in January to February 2004; and what plans are in place to prevent power incapacity at the coldest time of year. [132262]

§ Mr. Timms
Maintaining the reliability of energy supplies is one of four key goals set out in the Government's Energy White Paper.
It is not Government's role to second-guess the electricity market. Rather, through competitive markets, participants have strong financial incentives to maintain reliable supplies of electricity. These incentives are backed by a number of licence conditions and statutory obligations on National Grid, electricity suppliers and generators, which are enforced by Ofgem.
The Government do have a co-ordinating role to ensure that information is provided to the market. A major component of this is our work with Ofgem, through the joint energy security of supply working group to monitor energy security.
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National Grid also informs the market as to the forecast likely supply and demand position using a variety of publications and industry fora. In addition National Grid notifies market participants of tight reserve margins nearer to real time through a hierarchy of alert notices.
National Grid Transco's report on the outlook for gas and electricity markets was published today by Ofgem, and a copy of the report has been placed in the Libraries of the House.
National Grid has announced that it will be tendering for additional reserve capacity to enable it to mange the risks of short-term plant failure and changes in demand. These contracts would be in place prior to the winter period.
In addition, NOT is considering with participants to the Gas Network Code proposals to reduce the risk of supply disruptions in the gas market and the potential impact of these on gas-fired generation to the electricity market. Any formal proposals for modification would need to be considered by Ofgem, in light of their statutory duties, prior to implementation.

§ Miss McIntosh
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the cost to the National Grid was of loss of power through(a) trees falling on a power line, (b) high winds causing interruption of power in high wires carried over pylons, (c) birds landing on such lines and (d) other major loss of power from other causes in the last 12 months. [132263]

§ Mr. Timms
The number of incidents on NGT's network, which caused an immediate loss of supplies in the 12 months to 30 September 2003, is 10.
These incidents break down as follows:

(a) Trees—none

(b) high winds—none

(c) birds—none

(d)other—10 incidents (of which three are attributed to lightning strikes, one to a light aircraft colliding with an overhead line, four due to protection operations, one to plant failure, and one as a result of a construction incident—the losses of supply in these incidents range from under 1 minute to approximately 40 minutes).

On average 0.0001 per cent. of the total energy transferred on the England and Wales transmission network is lost per annum due to faults on the transmission network. Consequently, the actual figure for the cost to NGT through the loss of power from these incidents is very small (of the order of a few thousand pounds per annum).