Operation & Maintenance of Power Plants
El no poder garantizar el suministro de energía podría comprometer los ingresos y la seguridad pública. Informa Andy Parfi tt.
Wird die Stromversorgung nicht gesichert, könnten Erträge und die öff entliche Sicherheit beeinträchtigt werden. Andy Parfi tt berichtet.
Out go the lights
Failing to safeguard the power supply could compromise both revenue and public safety. Andy Parfi tt reports.
T
he fragility of the UK’s ageing power generation network is widely recognised. However the loss of Didcot power station to
fi re in 2014 coming hard on the heels of decommissioning several nuclear power stations and the lack, as yet, of suffi cient, cost eff ective and reliable renewable alternatives is pushing the country to the brink. Yet despite the very real risk of power outages, a huge proportion of the critical UK infrastructure is still 100% reliant on the mains supply, leaving businesses and consumers extremely vulnerable should major outages occur. From traffi c lights to railway crossings and utilities providers, the fact is that in today’s joined up and internet enabled society, every aspect of the infrastructure is reliant upon clean, reliable power supply. And for those tasked with delivering these services, contingency planning is not just about safeguarding the infrastructure; it is increasingly about safeguarding revenue. In today’s target driven and highly regulated society, any signifi cant failure in rail or road networks,
water or power utilities will result in fi nes, negative publicity and a drop in shareholder value.
Lights out When the UK government takes out what is eff ectively a £1 billion insurance policy against the lights going out, it is clearly time for the rest of the country to take note. With Britain facing a severe power generation crunch for the next two winters and Ofgem warning that the margin (the spare capacity above peak demand) could fall to as low as 2% next winter, contingency plans are becoming important. In addition to the recent controversial announcement regarding the proposed payment of £990m in subsidies to power plants to guarantee demand can be met from 2018, the government has also invested heavily in the Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) and the Securities and Emergencies Measures Directive (SEMD), designed to protect critical sites against terrorist attack. So not only does the UK have to contend with a power generation network still in transition, a loss of power may not just come from grid overload: there is a signifi cant risk of terrorist activity compromising the power network. And that means there is a pressing need to safeguard not only the most obvious aspects of the nation’s infrastructure the banks, the petrochemical plants, the power stations, and the government but to also ensure that the air, road and rail networks are able to manage in the event of power outage; that water supplies are not aff ected and that emergency services can still communicate eff ectively.
Protecting against power outage these problems is critical to keep the infrastructure working eff ectively and to minimise the additional costs associated with costly repair.
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Fragile society T e importance of such contingency planning is demonstrated on a nearly daily basis. When less than an hour’s downtime of the air traffi c control system over London resulted in two days of chaos; or
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