BEIS and Ofgem outline reviews of networks’ storm responses

The response of the network companies to the disruption caused by last month’s Storm Arwen will be under the spotlight in twin track official reviews of the incident, which were launched on Thursday (9 December).

Business and energy secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has announced that the Energy Emergencies Executive Committee (E3C) has been commissioned to conduct a “comprehensive review” of the incident, which saw around one million customers lose electricity supplies, including some for more than a week.

E3C is a forum comprising representatives from government, Ofgem and industry, which co-ordinates resilience planning across the energy industry. The committee conducted the investigation into August 2019’s blackout.

The E3C review will consider:

• The timeliness and content of networks’ public communications during the incident, including with vulnerable customers, and those off for a prolonged period
• Support to vulnerable customers and responsiveness in providing compensation
• Resourcing strategies for the networks’ field and customer communications staff
• Interactions between the networks and the Local Resilience Forums
• The effectiveness of the mutual aid processes between network operators when dealing with large scale and prolonged events
• The impacts of the storm across Great Britain’s electricity networks and identify how the resilience of the system can be improved

A final report will be submitted to the secretary of state by the end of March 2022, preceded by an interim report that is due out within eight weeks.

BEIS will provide the secretariat for the E3C review, which will set out an implementation plan to deliver its recommendations.

The committee’s review will run alongside a separate exercise being carried out by Ofgem, which was also launched on Thursday.

The regulator’s review will aim establish the compliance of individual networks with their statutory and licence obligations; whether companies fell short of their customers’ expectations; and wider regulatory considerations such as the use of price control funding and compensation arrangements.

In terms of network resilience, the review will assess investment and maintenance in areas that experienced faults. This exercise will include a look at the condition and associated maintenance records for these assets; whether they were appropriately designed and constructed for the environment within which they operate; and whether the proximity of lines to trees has been appropriately managed.

The Ofgem review will also consider how companies deployed resources to handle incidents, such as distributing generators and carrying out repairs.

And like the E3C review, the regulator will examine how well companies communicated with their customers and stakeholders during the incident.

Ofgem plans to report the review’s conclusions next spring.

The regulator said it will use the lessons from Storm Arwen to feed into a wider review of the climate resilience of network infrastructure and services.

Kwarteng said: “While I’m pleased all affected customers are now back online, it is completely unacceptable so many were left without power for so long. There is an urgent need to identify and resolve a number of issues which came to light during the Storm Arwen response, and the review I’ve commissioned, alongside Ofgem’s, will ensure any failings are addressed.”

Responding to the announcements, Energy Networks Association chief executive David Smith said: “We welcome and fully support the reviews announced by Ofgem and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). It’s important that we learn from Storm Arwen, particularly as the intensity and frequency of storms increases with climate change.”

The announcement of the two reviews follows fierce criticism of how network operators responded to Storm Arwen, including accusations of inadequate communication with customers and councils in the worst affected areas.