Heathrow slams National Grid boss who stated airport had ‘sufficient energy’ | UK | News | EUROtoday

Heathrow Airport bosses have hit again at claims made by the chief government of National Grid who say the airprort had sufficient energy from different substations regardless of Friday’s shutdown.

An enormous fireplace on the electrical energy substation in Hayes on Thursday night brought on extreme delays on the airport leading to greater than 200,000 air passengers having their flights to or from Heathrow cancelled or diverted on Friday, March 21 after the airport was closed all day as a result of fireplace.

John Pettigrew from National Grid informed the Financial Times there have been two different substations “always available for the distribution network companies and Heathrow to take power”. He added: “There was no lack of capacity from the substations. Each substation individually can provide enough power to Heathrow. Losing a substation is a unique event – but there were two others available. So that is a level of resilience.”

“Hundreds of essential methods throughout the airport had been required to be safely powered down after which safely and systematically rebooted. Given Heathrow’s measurement and operational complexity, safely restarting operations after a disruption of this magnitude was a major problem,” reports Sky News.

Initially Metropolitan Police counter-terrorism officers led the investigation but the force said the fire is not believed to be suspicious so the London Fire Brigade is now leading the probe.

It comes after a report by consultancy firm Jacobs highlighted in November 2014 how electricity outages could shut down Heathrow. The report, published on a Government website, warned: “Even a short interruption to electrical energy provides may have a long-lasting influence as methods can take time to recuperate.”

The document stated “outages may trigger disruption to passenger, baggage and plane dealing with features”, and “may require closure of areas of affected terminals or doubtlessly your entire airport.”

In its appraisal of operational risk at the airport, Jacobs said provision of on-site generation and other measures to ensure resilient supply appeared “to be sufficient” to enable Heathrow “to face up to and recuperate from interruptions to provide”. It added that the airport operated “inside danger parameters that aren’t extreme or uncommon for an airport of its kind”.

Energy secretary Ed Miliband has commissioned an urgent investigation into the power cut.

Money expert Martin Lewis has explained your rights to get compensation if your flight is affected by the Heathrow chaos. Martin explained that the exact amount you get depends on the distance the flight travelled and the amount of time it was delayed, as long as it left a UK or EU airport, as long as the airline was to blame for the delay.

Find out extra about the right way to declare compensation by clicking right here.