UK preparing for blackouts in wake of Iberian outages

The UK is constantly looking at our own resilience” to prepare for possible blackouts, a cabinet minister has said in the wake of large power outages that affected Spain and Portugal this week.

- MILLIE COOKE

Environment secretary Steve Reed added that the UK must wait to see what caused the blackouts before learning lessons to help strengthen the UK’s energy network.

Widespread power cuts brought Spain and Portugal to a standstill on Monday as traffic lights switched off and people were left unable to access cash machines. Spanish power distributors said on Tuesday morning that more than 99 per cent of power had been recovered.

“We’re constantly looking at our own at our own resilience,” Mr Reed told Times Radio. “There’s a subcommittee of cabinet, chaired by Pat McFadden, that is doing that day in and day out.

“When it comes to what’s gone on in Spain and Portugal, we need to have a look at exactly what their investigation finds out, and then see what lessons we can learn from it. But it’s difficult to learn the lessons until they find out what’s caused it.”

Addressing the Commons yesterday afternoon, energy minister Michael Shanks said the government has “robust emergency plans” to ensure that a similar power outage won’t hit the UK. “As a responsible government, we prepare for all eventualities, no matter how unlikely”, he said.

In an attempt to reassure MPs, Mr Shanks said Britain’s electricity system is “highly resilient”, adding that the government “works closely with industry to continually improve and maintain the resilience of energy infrastructure, networks and assets to reduce vulnerabilities”.

It comes after Downing Street dismissed suggestions that a reliance on renewable power was behind the outages, following Kemi Badenoch’s claim that it was likely to be the cause.