Heathrow Airport closed all day Friday 21 March 2025

[whole diary]

[Electric train]

A location of stratigic National importance such as Heathrow should have a robust backup system whilst they 100% may not be warranted they should be able to run core business at a acceptable degraded mode

As I said, the "robust back up system" did work, if an aircraft HAD to land at Heathrow last night it could have done so safely. Trying to keep an airport running when everything around it has failed is just asking for even more trouble. "Degraded mode" = what ?  Burger King open but not McDonalds ?

Strangely enough, before I retired, I actually worked at an airport setting to work a "robust back up system" such as is probably installed at Heathrow - albeit on a much larger scale at Heathrow. This was not designed to keep the airport restaurants running at that airport either.

My current job is looking after the traction power system for a large chunk of South London along with a number of major London stations.  There are always weak spots in a system especially older systems, the modern systems can operate a N-1 including a total loss of a National Grid connection in SE London, a reduced service would have to be implemented but it would not be a total shut down

Seems my option that Heathrow Airport should have been able to supply the Airport from the other 2 GSP as widely reported in the media is backed up by the boss of National Grid
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdjy4m0n1exo

There is no doubt a war of damage limitation of the 2 public listed companies going on to protect from reputational damage, political focus, not to mention the clams for costs from Airlines.

As I said in my original post on Friday, I am surprised the Heathrow were not able to reconfigure the supplies, something they should have been able to do that night, the only thing that then my have effected flights was the smoke from the fire.

[stuving]

Seems my option that Heathrow Airport should have been able to supply the Airport from the other 2 GSP as widely reported in the media is backed up by the boss of National Grid
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdjy4m0n1exo

There is no doubt a war of damage limitation of the 2 public listed companies going on to protect from reputational damage, political focus, not to mention the clams for costs from Airlines.

As I said in my original post on Friday, I am surprised the Heathrow were not able to reconfigure the supplies, something they should have been able to do that night, the only thing that then my have effected flights was the smoke from the fire.

One company that is keeping its head well below desk level is UKPN. They manage the distribution network at Heathrow, as an independent DNO^▸ (Distribution Network Operator) (or the equivalent). But they have put out some quite hubristic stuff about this role in the past, e.g. this:

Security and reliability of electricity is essential for all airports. Heathrow is no exception. Even an interruption of a few seconds could have a knock-on effect on baggage systems and cargo shipments. This could take many hours to resolve and lead to significant lost revenue and passenger disruption. Resilient power is also vital to the entire airport community: including passenger transport services, employees’ facilities, freight and cargo operators, passenger retail or restaurants, emergency services, rail links, and airlines themselves. 

Providing 24/7/365 resilient power to a global transport hub requires continuous innovation and dedication. This means around-the-clock maintenance, repairs, and renewals to thousands of high voltage electrical substations, transformers, relays, and more than 600km of cables...

Approach and innovation

As strategic energy infrastructure partner, our approach has been to work with Heathrow to deliver world-class performance every single day. The faultless maintenance of critical energy infrastructure of this scale and density is vitally important: the risks to people, property and businesses from electricity cannot be understated if not managed correctly.

... and a world class excuse generator?

[TonyK]

I think we are still in the phase of this incident where everybody tries to blame everybody else. Next will come the small matter of deciding who pays for all the expense. Hopefully, there will time for proper "wargaming" of the systems before too long, something that would have strengthened the response had it happened before, but may have been omitted because there had been no previous problems. I'm sure there will be chance one night for a simulation to develop a process for a quick recovery should it happen again.

[Electric train]

Seems my option that Heathrow Airport should have been able to supply the Airport from the other 2 GSP as widely reported in the media is backed up by the boss of National Grid
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdjy4m0n1exo

There is no doubt a war of damage limitation of the 2 public listed companies going on to protect from reputational damage, political focus, not to mention the clams for costs from Airlines.

As I said in my original post on Friday, I am surprised the Heathrow were not able to reconfigure the supplies, something they should have been able to do that night, the only thing that then my have effected flights was the smoke from the fire.

One company that is keeping its head well below desk level is UKPN. They manage the distribution network at Heathrow, as an independent DNO^▸ (Distribution Network Operator) (or the equivalent). But they have put out some quite hubristic stuff about this role in the past, e.g. this:

Security and reliability of electricity is essential for all airports. Heathrow is no exception. Even an interruption of a few seconds could have a knock-on effect on baggage systems and cargo shipments. This could take many hours to resolve and lead to significant lost revenue and passenger disruption. Resilient power is also vital to the entire airport community: including passenger transport services, employees’ facilities, freight and cargo operators, passenger retail or restaurants, emergency services, rail links, and airlines themselves. 

Providing 24/7/365 resilient power to a global transport hub requires continuous innovation and dedication. This means around-the-clock maintenance, repairs, and renewals to thousands of high voltage electrical substations, transformers, relays, and more than 600km of cables...

Approach and innovation

As strategic energy infrastructure partner, our approach has been to work with Heathrow to deliver world-class performance every single day. The faultless maintenance of critical energy infrastructure of this scale and density is vitally important: the risks to people, property and businesses from electricity cannot be understated if not managed correctly.

... and a world class excuse generator?

I agree about the excuse generator 

However it is still down to Heathrow Airport to have processes in place 24 / 7 to manage business interruption.  A major failure of a GSP is certainly something that is under constant consideration in the Southern Region of Network Rail