Heathrow Had Enough Power, Says UK Grid Boss

The head of the UK’s national grid, John Pettigrew, has stated that there was “enough power” to keep Heathrow Airport running on Friday, despite a fire at an electrical substation that caused the airport’s shutdown.

The shutdown, which lasted most of the day, affected thousands of passengers worldwide and raised concerns about the reliability of one of the UK’s key infrastructure.  pieces of infrastructure.

Pettigrew told the Financial Times that power remained available to the airport through two other substations.

“There was no lack of capacity from the substations,” he said. “Each substation individually can provide enough power to Heathrow.”

“Losing a substation is a unique event, but there were two others available.”

Heathrow Airport officials attributed the closure to the time required to switch to the other substations and conduct safety checks. “Hundreds of critical systems across the airport were required to be safely powered down and then safely and systematically rebooted,” a Heathrow Airport spokesperson said.

“Given Heathrow’s size and operational complexity, safely restarting operations after a disruption of this magnitude was a significant challenge.”

Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye explained that a back-up transformer failed, necessitating the closure of systems to restructure power supplies from the two other substations.

The UK government has ordered a six-week investigation into the shutdown. Approximately 1,350 flights were affected by Friday’s closure, according to Flightradar24. Around 120 Heathrow-bound planes were diverted after the closure was announced.

Fire officials have stated that the blaze, which occured on Thursday night, was “believed to be non-suspicious” and that inquiries would “focus on the electrical distribution equipment”.

When asked about the airport’s handling of the events on Monday, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said, “I’m not going to justify decisions that Heathrow leadership did or didn’t take.”