Lessons to be learnt: how Heathrow can learn from its rivals to avoid another power outage.
Heathrow should learn from the experiences of Schiphol airport to ensure it doesn’t suffer a complete closure from a power failure again, Simon Gallagher, the Managing Director at UK Networks Services told Montel’s Plugged In podcast.
“Schiphol had problems back in 2018 where they actually saw high voltage fluctuations on their high voltage power supplies... They didn't have enough generation to back up their terminals either. But since that, they have put in more generation now. And they actually test it quite regularly.
“They will actually switch their terminals off from the main supply while they're in operation. So, it’s not just theory, they will actually turn the terminals off to test their backup systems while the airport's open during the day,” he said.
London Heathrow airport closed for 18 hours last Friday as a result of a power cut caused by a fire at a nearby electrical substation. Questions remain as to how such a power cut could force the entire airport to close for so long and why an international travel hub was vulnerable to a single point of failure.
Speaking on Plugged In: the energy news podcast the MD of UK Networks Services has questioned why the existing access to the power network couldn’t be more quickly reconfigured to provide power to the airport. UK Network Services is a leading UK independent energy networks consultancy, specialising in large connections and grid resilience.
Simon Gallagher also provided insight into how two transformers failed at the North Hyde substation and much more detail as to the power demands of the airport compared to data centres including one nearby to Heathrow.
“Why does Heathrow not have a lot of generation backup?” He asked Richard Sverrisson, the host of Plugged In. “So right next to Heathrow, in fact, within 20 meters of the fence of the substation where the fire happened, there's a brand-new data centre… And that data centre will ultimately consume 150MW. So, three, four times what Heathrow consumes.
“And that's connected via 66,000-volt cables to North Hyde, the exact same substation. But the big difference in that data centre and Heathrow is the data centre has got 100% generation backup. They've actually got twelve Rolls Royce [3MW back-up] generators … The generators fired up, they never lost operations. And they've got twelve generators, but they only actually need eleven. One of them is there to back up the backups.”
The UK government has commissioned a full report into what happened at Heathrow. The results of which are expected within six weeks. Listeners can tune in to Plugged In on all major podcast platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Montel’s website and is available for free.
