UK government makes energy crisis contingency plans The Department of Trade and Industry is to ‘help draw up advice for UK companies about what would happen in an emergency, or even a lesser crisis such as “a tight gas supply situation”’, the leaked document says. Risks highlighted in the memo include: the imposition of gas supply outages to conserve supplies; a fall in general gas supply pressure and; a ‘risk of plant/product degradation’. The threat of a 1-in-10 winter means that UK businesses would be well advised to review their dependencies on all types of fuel supplies. The government is clearly taking the threat to gas supplies seriously and the predicted shortages will not only have a direct impact on gas users, but also potential secondary impacts on electricity supplies. This threat is exacerbated by the increased risk of weather related electricity outages this winter. Business continuity planners, therefore, need to ensure that their power generation requirements and protection capabilities has been thoroughly assessed and any upgrades need to be implemented immediately.
•Date: 24th Nov 2005 • Region: UK • Type: Article •Topic: Power management |
