| London returns to business as usual following power outage At 6.26pm local time yesterday a wide-area power outage occurred in the London area of the UK. Although the outage only lasted 34 minutes it caused widespread transport problems which continued for many hours after power returned. 60 percent of London Underground tube trains were affected, with many being stranded between stations. Problems also occurred on the over-ground rail network and on the roads, as hundreds of traffic lights were out of action. The situation seems to have returned to normal this morning. Questions are being raised as to why such a comparatively minor incident should have such chaotic effects. The UK Energy Minister Stephen Timms has asked the National Grid for an urgent report into the cause of the incident, which appears to have been the result of two technical failures happening in quick succession.
STATEMENT REGARDING POWER CUT IN SOUTH LONDON National Grid Transco can confirm that electricity was restored to its system at approximately 19:00 hrs this evening. We have done everything possible to protect the network and restore power as quickly as possible. At 18:20 hrs alarms sounded on our system saying there was a fault and we automatically switched out that part of the network. This is a normal procedure under the circumstances. This resulted in a significant power cut in the South of London as we isolated the fault. We re-routed our power system and had power back into the area affected by 19:00 hrs. We have worked closely with the local electricity company who had restored all its customers by 19:15 hrs. At this stage we are investigating the cause and cannot speculate on what happened.
•Date:
29th August 2003 • Region: UK •Type:
Article •Topic: BC
general
|
