Blackouts coming soon?

booneruk · 10 August at 9:50PM

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82098764#Comment_82098764

There are plenty of other doom situations one could wallow in too should the mind be allowed to wander.

There's a non zero chance of blackout anxiety contributing to a cardiac event should one happen. I personally prefer to keep a more positive mindset 🙂

silverwhistle · 10 August at 9:52PM

Oh, absolutely! I think in the OP's case a worry induced ulcer is more likely!

MWT · 10 August at 9:53PM

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82098735#Comment_82098735

Hard to get too excited about a change in something we haven't used in over 50 years…

A lot has changed since the rolling blackouts in the 70's, not the least of which is the prevalence of car ownership making it a lot easer to get to a hospital etc. in an emergency.

With home batteries on the rise along with solar PV, a good number of people wouldn't even notice a 3 hour blackout…

QrizB · 10 August at 9:57PM

There's no requirement for them to keep working

Ofcom has published guidance on this:

we expect MNOs to take robust measures to manage and mitigate against the risks of power outages and support continued communications services during power outages and surges which might reasonably be expected to occur.

And as for:

A lot of harm can take place in three long hours.

I think there needs to be some perspective on this.

Rolling blackouts would be a national emergency. Emergencies involve dangers, that's why they're emergencies.

The alternative to a rolling blackout is, of course, grid collapse necessitating a black start. The current Ofgem black-start requirement is that NESO and the DNOs restore power to 60% of the UK in 24 hours, and 100% in 6 days.

Would you rather be without power for three hours on a predictable schedule, or for between one and six days with no certainty of when it's coming back on?

QrizB · 10 August at 10:15PM

For comparison, here's a preprint of a statistical analysis of excess deaths in Spain following the 2025 Iberian blackout (lasting about 10 hours).

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.03.25328877v1

They identify 167 excess deaths (95% confidence range 28 to 300).

Spain has roughly half the population of the UK, so a similar event here might result in 300 deaths? Whether NESO could get our grid back up in 10 hours or not is the big unknown here; I remember everyone being surprised by how quickly the Spanish network operator restored power, with the expectation being that it could have taken several days (see NESOs current target in my previous post).

Reed_Richards · 10 August at 11:03PM

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82098669#Comment_82098669

I am. I have a home battery. It is wired to power the lights, fridge, freezer and router in the event of a power cut. And each appliance is connected to a dual socket so there is scope to plug a few more things in.

Scot_39 · 10 August at 11:18PM

Can you provide a source for the

Cell towers: Most towers have battery backups or generators that last a few hours.

Its a bit old now c2024 - but the Ofcom figures suggests many cell towers had nowhere near a "few hours" - and in fact many had less than 15 minutes - as demonstrated by the cost estimates to get backup across the UK for the various target times

See table 7 - page

https://ukfcf.org.uk/ofcom-refines-thinking-on-cost-of-adding-power-backup-to-uk-mobile-sites/

15 mins - £250m —> £500m

1 hour - £1.1 —> 2.2 bn

2 hours - £1.7 —> 3.4 bn

and

4 hours - £2.2 bn —> £4.4 bn

(Ofcom says 4 hrs would cover 93% of outages - leaving 7%)

The latest 2 Ofcom reports from 2025 and 2026 - have slots for charts - on current power resilience - but both I checked to be redacted when it comes to updating us on progress of such worrying (from a consumer point of view) stats.

IIRC the landline guidance for the vulnerable - from the 2026 proposal - is again just 1 hour.