Paying for sanctions: Britain braced for week-long blackouts

The British government plans to deal with power outages that could last up to seven days. According to the worst-case scenario, all sectors, including food, water, transport, communications and energy, will be affected for up to a week, the new report says.

The UK government is testing plans to tackle power outages that could last up to seven days, Sky News says, according to the report.

And The Guardian reports that a series of exercises have been held across the UK in recent days with government departments and councils. The newspaper has seen documents labeled “officially confidential” that warn that in a “reasonable worst case scenario” all sectors, including transport, food and water, communications and energy, could be “severely disrupted” for up to a week by a blackout. electricity.

Documents show authorities will prioritize providing food, water and shelter for the young and old, and those responsible for caregivers, if the country experiences power outages, with the Met Office warning that Britain faces a higher risk of a cold winters.

Whitehall officials are currently stress testing the Yarrow program, a confidential blackout plan, and have conducted a series of exercises with government departments and local councils across the country in recent days.

The Yarrow program was developed in 2021 to improve planning and provide resilience in the event of a major technical failure in the National Grid, such as flood damage, a lightning strike on a substation, or a hostile state attack on submarine power cables.

The program’s worst-case scenario affects all sectors, including transport, food, water, communications and energy, with power outages of up to a week.

The report says that all premises without standby generators will be cut off from power without warning, with 60% of electricity demand met between days two and seven, when homes and businesses receive “intermittent access” to food supplies.

“All sectors will be severely disrupted, including communications, transport networks, power supply, food and water supply,” one of the documents says.

In this scenario, only analogue FM radios will work, and probably only BBC Radio 2 and 4 will be broadcast.

The agreement between energy regulator Ofgem and the National Grid power grid says that 100% of electricity demand must be restored in a week, and the British government expects this goal to be achieved even under the worst-case scenario, reports The Guardian.

The program targets a more serious situation than that outlined last month by National Grid, which warned of three-hour worst-case power outages this winter.

A source told The Guardian: “The government doesn’t want any publicity about Yarrow as they don’t want the program to be seen as related to Ukraine, energy supply and the cost of living. But we need to think in advance about how we can help people. The fact that they’re talking about it now means they’re really worried that this could happen.”

The British government said in a comment to Sky News: “As a responsible government, we are properly planning all possible scenarios and working with industry to prepare and implement robust contingency plans. This work is ongoing and is an important focus of our national resilience planning. Local and national exercises are part of this ongoing work and will ensure that we can respond effectively to any of a wide range of scenarios, however unlikely they may be.”

As noted by Sky News, the Yarrow program preceded the conflict in Ukraine, but concerns about energy supply have increased due to the threat of Russia cutting off Europe’s energy supply. And government insiders have acknowledged that blackout planning has taken on a new urgency as a result of the energy crisis that has led to a sharp increase in electricity bills for households.