Heathrow is coming under increasing control for his decision to close for nearly 24 hours after a fire in a nearby electric substation, although he was still able to get energy from other parts of the network.
High management at Europe’s busiest airport made the decision to close on Friday as they fought to restore full power to a complex that uses the same amount of electricity as a small town.
But John Pettigrew, the Chief Executive of the National Grid, who operates the British high voltage network, told The Financial Times that two other substations that served Heathrow were working throughout the incident, means that power was always available, even if the airport was unable to touch it quickly.
As concerns increase about the sustainability of the UK’s critical infrastructure, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on Monday said “there are questions” for Hub airport drivers to respond to the scale of division.
Why was there not enough reserve power to run the airport?
Heathrow has enough oil generators to strengthen critical operations, including his control tower and runway lights, and passengers were able to safely leave the airport late on Thursday night after the break was first reported. But its generators lack the ability to run the entire airport.
Simon Gallagher, managing director of UK network services, a consultancy specialized in power networks, said some other airports have better spare supplies than Heathrow.
But he said other industries “are much more resilient”, adding: “The airport industry as a whole has this issue with resistance … Other industries with even greater connections ensure that they never go from supply.”
Heathrow has launched an internal review in power outage and subsequent airport closure, led by board member and former transport secretary Ruth Kelly.
The National Energy System Operator is conducting a special government investigation into its interruption and impact on Heathrow and the surrounding area.
How is Heathrow’s resistance compare?
A nearby data center run by ARK data centers, which is equipped with 12 emergency generators, was also affected by Friday’s substation fire, but says it managed to avoid interruption by turning on its spare supply.
“I don’t think people who buy services from me would buy them without this built -in consistency,” said Huw Owen, chief executive of the cash register.
Energy Minister Michael Shanks on Tuesday collected further pressure for Heathrow, suggesting that there was “significant surplus” built on the energy infrastructure surrounding the airport.
“The local network operator and the national network were able to … to find a way out to connect all families within hours,” he told the MPs. “We need to see the viability of the external network connected to Heathrow, but the private network within heathrow is what they need to review.”
A 2023 US government report revealed that a large central airport reported that there were 10 oil generators with sufficient diesel and fuel in the country to empower the entire airport for three weeks. The airport was seen as an external, analysts said.
Resistance should “hit the proper balance between risks and costs,” said Olivier Jankovec, Director General of Trade Group Airport Council in international Europe. “Providing minimal outages and keeping operations go as much as possible is not always possible – especially when faced with rare and extreme events.”
Why did it take so long to resume if energy was available?
While the fire fired the North Hyde substation outside the operation, two others remained capable of providing power at the airport. But to enter the energy from the remaining two substations, Heathrow said it had to “reconfigure” its internal electric networks.
In practice, this meant that the airport had to send technique to their own power distribution points, where they physically changed circuit breakers to disconnect Heathrow from North Hyde and connect it to other stations.
The airport also had to be closed, rebooted, and systematically test hundreds of its systems before resuming operations.
Heathrow said: “Given the Heathrow’s operational size and complexity, the safe resumption of operations after an interruption of this size was an important challenge.”
It is unclear how long every step of the process lasted, and some experts said they were surprised by the duration of the time it took to turn the airport into normal operation.
Heathrow announced at 4.30pm on Friday that it would close until midnight, and from 12.30pm it had begun to rebuild its systems. From 4 pm, the airport was “100 percent sure that all systems were working with certainty,” said Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander. The first flights were resumed around 7pm.
“In a way, it seems that (it was) a failure of the process,” said David Wallom, a professor of computing at Oxford University. “It looks like Heathrow had never considered the possibility of this degree of failure.”
Should heathrow be better prepared?
All emergency planning requires a “weight of the economy,” said Malte Jansen, a energy policy researcher at Sussex University.
“No technical system will be 100 percent of failure,” he said. “I didn’t get the feeling that this was a reckless design – the system was created to be reliable and a very impossible occasion has come to realization.”
However, the power industry leaders said heathrow should have been better prepared given his status as Europe’s busiest airport. The ability to change power quickly “must be a minimum standard,” said one executive.
A 2014 report from Consulting Jacobs, prepared as part of a previous heathrow expansion push, said “even a short power outage can have a long impact”.
But she concluded that “Heathrow is equipped with generation in the country and seems to have elastic supplies of electricity that are in accordance with regulations and standards”.
Heathrow has spent a total of 7.4bn IN on capital expenditure at the airport since 2014, including new security scanners. But at a time when landing tariffs have increased, airlines have criticized its owners for spending this money inefficiently, leaving the airport with aging infrastructure.
Additional reporting by Clara Murray in London. Illustrations by Ian Bott
