Utilities network under threat

Major power failure would leave gas & electricity companies in jeopardy

Most gas and electricity companies rely on commercial mobile phone networks that would stop working in the event of a major power failure. Public mobile networks have limited battery back-up which, once exhausted, would leave engineers working to restore vital utilities unable to communicate.

The situation is not a result of mismanagement on the part of either energy companies or mobile phone network operators, but exposes the need for a high-level overview of interdependencies in the UK utility sector.

It also represents a major threat to the UK critical national infrastructure and does not meet the governments' Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS) business continuity planning that includes 'loss of mains electricity supply for up to three days locally or 24 hours regionally'. The current position has crept up on us. The old, nationalised utilities ran a nationwide private mobile radio (PMR) network.

Following privatisation, and with the increasingly ubiquitous reach of commercial mobile phone networks, most energy companies stopped maintaining the expensive system (see below). Discontinuing the PMR is often the right move for the individual company, says the Institute of Directors, senior policy adviser Jim Norton. "Everyone appears to be making a sensible business decision within their own landscape, but who is looking at the UK as an overall system?" said Norton adding "What is missing is an overview of the implications of individual business decisions.  It is crucial that we think of the UK utilities infrastructure as a complete and working system"

"Part of the problem is that the interrelation of different utilities is not fully understood" says energy networks consultant Chris Mortley. "What concerns me most is that it is really difficult for firms to get a grasp of the dependencies and the way these issues interact, in respect of national telecoms resilience, in times of major dislocating events such as prolonged wide-area power outages" said Mortley.

The CCS was established in 2001 to take the national view, but lacks the power to make changes requiring primary legislation. Similarly, resilience issues fall outside the scope of telecoms watchdog Ofcom. Power companies remain convinced mobile phone communications are sufficient.  We are quite happy that mobile phones are suitable for our engineers" said a spokeswoman for electricity giant E.ON.  There would have to be a really massive power cut, affecting great swathes of the country, for it to be a problem" she said.

This attitude is surprising given that major power cuts are not uncommon. In November, millions of people across Europe were affected by cable problems in north-west Germany, and in October more than 200,000 people in the US and Canada lost power after a storm.  Our electricity system is becoming more complex and more fragile"said Jeremy Green, principal analyst at Ovum. "Major shutdowns or collapses are not a fantastic scenario."

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