Winter blackout contingency planning

MattMattMattUK

Planeteer said:

With the UK's energy dependencies and the reluctance of a PM - increasingly seeming on daily wages - to inform the people of sensible planning or preparations for winter blackouts, are there any other sources of steps to take for household energy management in the winter? How does one minimise impact? Wouldn't be bad for MSE/ML to take a stance for consumers again, just as he did for pricing?

Power cuts are unlikely, however even if they happen they will only be for a few hours, people will be able to cope, almost no one will need to to make any special preparations. 

oldagetraveller1

Plenty of coal in stock, no issues with heating here. It's amazing how the heat from that radiates around the house.

Assuming gas stays on, cooking hot food fine using a match to light the burners, as required.

We have regular local powercuts anyway, well used to it.

I was also around in the 70s, 3 day week and all that.

I wonder what the next scaremongering subject will be when the lights do stay on all winter?!

Astria

victor2 said:

Consumers can look at ways to reduce their usage, which many are doing already. It saves money and reduces the load on the grid.

Meanwhile others are looking at ways of increasing the load on the grid by having charging points installed for their electric vehicles Once they tell people to stop charging their EVs we know we are low on power, until then power cuts are unlikely to happen.

Miser1964

Looting will be widespread, that's the difference from the 1970s. Anyone with high-street shops and commercial property needs to be planning boarding-up windows etc. as cameras and alarms will be knocked out. Not that the police would respond anyway!

I'd try to be at home during the period of power-cuts, playing battery radio loudly and with LED lanterns on to deter opportunist burglars.

elsien

Miser1964 said:

Looting will be widespread, that's the difference from the 1970s

Blimey, you’re a cheery little soul.

I’m not seeing how widespread looting automatically follows on from the power going off for a couple of hours?

TheGardener

EssexHebridean said:

...speak to anyone in the Scottish Islands as a starting point - ultimately if you spend any amount of time in those locations then you make sure you know where your torches and candles are, you make sure that you have at least some “emergency rations” in the house - foods that can be eaten “as is” without any additional cooking required, or that need just the addition for example of boiling water - and then you make sure you have a camping stove, pan or kettle to suit, and a safe preferably undercover and partially sheltered outside area to use it. You have blankets to hand in the winter, for warmth when just sitting, and for extra layers on the beds overnight, in case the outage continues longer than expected. 

The Islands have a couple of advantages though - peats are free but for the labour, old crofts had both an electric and a gas stove (before the days of combinations), most homes outside HS1 have propane, and those in town have the Shell St. Gas facility and the Power Station on Battery Point can be fired up in about 25 mins

What the informed voices said yesterday was that outages were unlikely - but more likely than last year....now, I'm off to visit the 'preppers' board - they'll be having a field day

gt94sss2

For anyone for whom internet access is critical (including if you use a VoIP landline) you may want to consider investing in a UPS..

[Deleted User]

The actual simulations show that under the most extreme assumptions for this winter then is a non-negligible chance of a few supply shortages. In all but the worst cases, there are no expected power cuts.

And why should we be told by the government what to do if the power goes out for a few hours with several days notice. Have we suddenly all become idiots with no comprehension of the real world?

You’d think it was the expected collapse of civilisation!

MattMattMattUK

wittynamegoeshere said:

How practical or otherwise would it be to cut off gas temporarily?  It seems that electricity is vastly more critical, so if there's a gas shortage it may be better to keep the gas power stations running and cut off gas customers.  So the heating would go off for a bit but you'd still have lighting, comms and medical equipment.

But I realise that gas wouldn't flick off - the pressure would gradually reduce, then pilot lights would go out, and the danger would be when the supply is reconnected - e.g. an old gas hob would merrily squirt out unlit gas if it had been on previously.

We usually get floods when the water supply is cut off then reinstated, as people check their taps while it's off then forget to turn them off again.

Most gas appliances do have a thermal cut-off, but there must be loads of appliances that pre-date this, and an explosion is more of a problem than a flood.

What I'm suggesting is that it may be less desirable but necessary to keep gas on at all costs.  Does anyone know if there is an official policy in this way?  If so then electricity cuts are definitely likely.

The gas being cut off is a real nightmare, network repressurisation takes days and cannot be done without access to all properties, systems in houses need to be bled etc. Water is different as it does not become flammable when mixed with air, however the system can become contaminated when the pressure falls lower than that of the groundwater.

If the gas network loses pressure it will take days, weeks or months to resolve depending on the scale of the depressurisation. Electricity cuts for most would be nothing more than a mild inconvenience, for those where it would be an issue they will almost always have a backup solution in place and for those who do not there would be alternative locations. 

ChaunceyGardiner

wittynamegoeshere said:

How practical or otherwise would it be to cut off gas temporarily?

I've twice experienced a 'gas cut', due to gas main repairs/maintenance. Both times, the gas wasn't turned back on until gas network staff visited every affected property to ensure that all gas appliances were turned off. So I imagine it's a non-starter on a large scale.