National Grid’s Preliminary Report On Blackout

Thanks to Paul Homewood for the initial analysis. Note that module 1 of Hornsea wind farm operated normally throughout, even though modules 2 and 3 cut out.

By Paul Homewood

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/information-about-great-britains-energy-system-and-electricity-system-operator-eso

Key points:

• Lightning was the original cause, even though such strikes are perfectly common, and do not usually result in such catastrophic blackouts
• Hornsea wind farm tripped first, contrary to original reports.
• They still don’t seem to know exactly why either Hornsea or Little Barford tripped, though it was obviously due to the lightning.
• Along with the loss of 500MW of small embedded generation (wind and solar), the total loss was about 1878MW
• National Grid has 1000MW of automatic back up power available, incl 472MW of battery storage. Clearly this was not enough.
• Following the lightning strike, the grid’s protection systems worked properly

Certain aspects don’t seem to have been highlighted:

• When Hornsea wind farm is fully operational in the next year or so, it will have capacity of 1200MW. In addition, Hornsea Project 2, due on line in 2024, will have an additional 1386MW capacity…