The U.K.’s energy markets regulator said it’ll probe whether grid operators or power generators breached license conditions during the Aug. 9 blackout that saw more than one million British households lose power.
The failure followed outages at a natural gas-fired power plant and an offshore wind farm. The grid was restored within a few minutes with backup sources, but trains were delayed for hours as network companies struggled to get systems back to normal.
National Grid Plc submitted a preliminary report to Ofgem on Friday triggering the probe that will look at whether the National Grid held sufficient back-up power and how generators Orsted A/S and RWE AG met their obligations to the grid during the blackout, Ofgem said in a statement.
“We believe there are still areas where we need to use our statutory powers to investigate these outages,” said Jonathan Brearley, Ofgem’s executive director of systems and networks. “This will ensure the industry learns the relevant lessons and to clearly establish whether any firm breached their obligations to deliver secure power supplies to consumers.”
A final, detailed technical report by the grid must be delivered to Ofgem by Sept. 6.
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