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Networks operators will soon need to begin adjusting their work plans for the summer season in response to the coronavirus, an industry expert has forewarned.
They may face difficulties if they remove equipment from service during the accompanying lull in demand and then suffer from staff shortages as a result of the global pandemic.
John Scott, who recently retired from running an independent consultancy and formerly held the position of technical director at Ofgem, noted that the UK is still in the winter season for the time being: “Usually at this time of the year when demand is high, the networks don’t take equipment out of service for maintenance or construction work”.
“Traditionally the changeover to that season where you start taking equipment out of service is after the clock change,” he explained. “After the clock change, the peak demand starts to ease off because its lighter in the evenings.”
British Summer Time, when clocks forward by an hour, will begin in less than two weeks’ time on 29 March.
Scott said at this point network will need to start making decisions on which work to continue with: “If you start depleting the network and then you have critical staff shortages it might be harder to return equipment to service quickly if there’s a problem.”
If significant numbers of staff come down with the virus, Scott said this could not only affect networks’ ability to perform maintenance and reinforcement but also delay the restoration of supplies when there is an interruption.
However, he said their control rooms, in particular the ESO’s, should be able to manage fine: “The good news about controls generally is that because they have to work 24/7, then you have to have quite a big pool of staff to be able run that kind of rota system and that does give a bit of flexibility.
“I would expect things to have to get pretty serious before that flexibility was exhausted in terms of being able to cover the essential jobs.”
Scott told Utility Week network companies are likely asking for Ofgem for flexibility on some of their targets to reflect the impact of the coronavirus.
He said granting this is within the regulator’s powers but would require a formal process for adjustment as “where there’s real money involved, where it’s penalties or rewards, the conditions for those penalties or rewards are very tightly specified.”
“Ofgem would want to make sure of course that if they provided any of that kind of allowance or flexibility that it was only when essentially and following best endeavours by the companies – in other words, it wasn’t being used a kind of escape clause.”
He also raised fears that the crisis that may blunt some of the momentum that had built up around decarbonisation: “If you go into to complete lockdown – we’re not going to do anything that’s not essential, we’re not going to send staff out if we don’t have to, going on to a war footing – then you could see certain projects being suspended or not commencing…
“And that’s going to be the important judgement for Ofgem and the companies to make.”
A senior figure from one network company recently called for more clarity from the regulator on whether license conditions would be relaxed during the crisis.
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