Extreme heat is putting the UK at risk of blackouts as the grid struggles to cope with soaring temperatures.
The UK’s electricty grid is vulnerable to overheating during high temperatures, a report commissioned by the Government found, which could result in the lights going out in parts of the country.
Four years ago, 15,000 homes in England lost power as temperatures soared above 40C and experts warn events like this are likely to happen more in the future.
Last week saw record-breaking May temperatures above 35C in parts of the country, putting unprecedented pressures on Britain’s infrastructure. Thousands of homes in Kent have been without water in recent days as water companies struggle to cope with soaring demand.
With climate change impacting the UK at rates faster than previously expected, experts say the country is struggling to adapt.
Grid struggles to cope with extreme heat
Last year, the Government published research into how vulnerable the country’s energy infrastructure is to extreme heat.
Looking at everything from gas power plants to wind farms, it found that the electricity grid was most vulnerable part of the system.
Built largely between the 1920s and 1950s, the grid was not designed for extreme heat, meaning that faults become more frequent once temperatures exceed 30C, the report found.
According to the Met Office, the hottest parts of the UK will experience an average of six days per year above 30C when global warming is 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – this rises to 11 days when global warming reaches the 2C threshold. The world is close to passing the threshold of 1.5C global warming and scientists predict the 2C threshold will be hit in the 2040s.
Higher temperatures cause pieces of equipment such as underground cables, switch gears and circuit breakers to fail. If enough of these failures happen at once, power outages can occur, as happened during the July 2022 heatwave when 15,000 homes in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the North East lost electricity.
During the same heatwave, London almost experienced a city-wide blackout which was narrowly avoided when the National Grid paid £9,724 per megawatt hour, more than 5,000 per cent above the average price, to export electricity from Belgium.
According to the Government’s research, pressure on the grid during a heatwave could trigger “electricity shortfalls” and “loadshedding” – where the operator temporarily cuts power to manage demand, researchers warned.
In such a scenario, energy-intensive industries such as steel and manufacturing are typically first to be affected. Critical services such as hospitals are legally required to have back-up generators to protect against such an event.
Professor Hannah Chalmers, an energy expert at the University of Edinburgh, said the grid can be upgraded to deal with extreme heat, but temperatures are rising “faster than we expected”.
“We haven’t necessarily had the chance to do all the adaptation we need for the shifts in temperatures we’re starting to see,” she said.
Solar creates challenges
Professor Chalmers warned that managing the grid is growing more complex as renewable sources such as wind and solar make up a greater share of the energy mix. Unlike traditional power stations, renewables can cause sudden fluctuations in supply that are harder to control.
The grid is being upgraded to handle these swings – but getting it wrong can trigger blackouts.
This was potentially a contributing factor in the widespread blackouts across Spain and Portugal last year, when a series of voltage disturbances caused a chain reaction the grid operator couldn’t contain.
Solar power wasn’t the direct cause of the blackout but the high volume of renewables in the system made it far harder for the grid operator to stabilise supply and stop the outage spreading.
Managing the grid is becoming more complicated due to renewable energy (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)How likely are blackouts?
Despite the challenges, the UK’s grid remains one of the most reliable in the world, with official figures showing a reliability rate above 99.99 per cent each year since 2021.
This means on average customers lose power for 25-30 minutes per year.
Professor Chalmers urged people not to “panic” and said localised blackouts were still a rare worst case scenario.
“It’s just that the pace of climate change is a bit faster than we had anticipated,” she said.
Professor Chalmers said the UK was adapting to its “new reality”, but these things “take time”.
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