Leader: Winter weather puts utilities to the test

The first trials of winter are upon us. As temperatures have dropped and wind speeds and rainfall increased, the preparations utilities have made for harsh weather in recent months are being tested.

At National Grid, the cooler weather and darkening days triggered the inaugural publication of its new capacity market notice on 31 October – swiftly followed by a second demonstration of the automated service for capacity market participants on 7 November. So far, so good, though the triggering of the notices proves nothing in itself about the readiness of participants to respond to instructions from the system operator – both operating margin alerts to date have been cancelled when the supply threshold returned to acceptable levels.

More recently, Storm Angus has brought gale force winds and flooding to many areas of the UK prompting almost 8,500 calls to the recently launched 105 emergency number for power cuts on Sunday 20 November and Monday 21 November.

The 105 system accounted for about a quarter of calls made by customers to the worst affected distribution network operators (DNOs) – UKPN, SSE and WPD – with the rest funnelling into longer-standing individual DNO customer support centres.

In response to Met Office weather warnings, many DNOs had laid on extra call centre staff and overall their response to the challenges of Storm Angus was fairly slick. In Electricity North West’s licence area where over 16,000 properties lost power when the storm hit, most were reconnected “within a few hours”, according to the DNO.

By the standards of the biggest storms of recent years, Storm Angus was a relatively mild affair, but nonetheless for customers in remote and flood-prone areas who had to wait longer for utility services to be restored, it was a source of difficulty and misery. Flooding in particular caused chaos in Bristol and other areas of the South and sparked angry criticism of government from environmental group Friends of the Earth. It said the discomfort and damage could have been mitigated if government had delivered the investment promised in recent years in natural flood defences across the UK.

As winter goes on, this shortfall in investment is likely to get more airtime and, by association, old questions about the role of utilities in delivering flood resilience may come under fresh scrutiny.