Britain could be hit by a power outage that could leave millions without power

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Britain could be hit by a power outage that could leave millions without power

Electricity is now so scarce in Britain that any more grid problems or unusual plant failure could leave millions without power. Even before the fire, National Grid Plc s buffer of spare winter capacity was set to be the largest for five years.

If anything goes wrong, we might not have anything left in the back pocket,” said Tom Edwards, consultant of Cornwall Insight Ltd. an expert to the government and utilities. If a nuke goes offline or something else big, that could cause issues because we might not have anything to replace it. Beyond the immediate chaos a prolonged shutdown would cause, a blackout could have severe economic consequences. Just as Britain emerges from the pandemic, power outages would send energy prices even higher, compounding concerns about inflation and adding to the rising costs firms are already shouldering for raw materials.

Britain imports and exports power. Among them are six large cables, two of which are connected to France. The electricity flows into the market with highest price. On average about 7.5% of U.K. s demand has been met by power from France's 56 nuclear plants in the UK this year.

Supply from France is set to be diminished now. With half of the cable capacity being discontinued until 2022, the shortfall will affect prices well into next year. The remainder of the capacity is scheduled to go online Sept. 25 but this will depend on the extent of damage and whether the cable can be operated safely.

This winter Goldman warns of the potential Blackout Risk for European Industry.

The outage is going to lift the potential for price volatility as long as it is offline, said Glenn Rickson, head of power analysis at S&P Global Platts.

This month, power prices sailed through records as a period of calm weather extended nuclear emissions at the same time as wind generators were reduced. The unprecedented rally in gas prices in the U.K. and Europe pushed up the price of using the fuel to make power.

The National Grid sounded an early warning back in July that the U.K.'s ability to meet peak demand would be more strained this year. On the long term impact of the IFA - 1 outage in the coming days, a spokesman said. We re still forecasting that we ll have enough margin to continue safely supplying electricity over winter. The interconnection outage doesn t necessarily mean a blackout today, but as the weather gets colder and demand picks up in October and November, the system will get even tighter, said Andreas Gandolfo, an analyst at BloombergNEF.