OT: GB power grid blackout cover-up

Spike · 2026-07-25T09:47:34+00:00

Lawyers to investigate claims of GB power grid cover-up over blackout riskOperator brings in independent legal firm to look into whistleblowerallegations relating to June heatwaveJillian Ambrose Energy correspondentQuote:Industry data shows that power grid frequency fell below operational limitsas the high-pressure heat dome curbed renewable energy generation andtriggered unplanned outages at gas plants, while demand for electricity torun air-conditioning systems surged.The whistleblower alleged that during this period senior bosses orderedcontrol room staff to ensure that there was no audit trail or records ofkey decisions made relating to managing fluctuations in the electricitysystem.In a letter to the UK’s data watchdog, Coutinho said that a whistleblowerhad alleged that staff were told not to keep permanent records of theirdecisions and that Neso’s corporate affairs team attempted to pressureoperators to make decisions in order to protect the organisation’sreputation.Unquote Full article:

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The Natural Philosopher 3 months ago

No, That was just NESOs story.

Thee whistleblower said that in fact it was far worse. Do learn to read.

As it happens gridwatch records frequencu and on June 23rd ther were periods where frequency was outside NESOs standards ob 49.8Hz-50.2Hz

mysql> select timestamp, frequency from day where timestamp like '2026-06-23%' order by frequency asc;

+---------------------+-----------+ | timestamp | frequency | +---------------------+-----------+ | 2026-06-23 18:00:31 | 49.695999 | | 2026-06-23 18:55:32 | 49.716 | | 2026-06-23 18:15:32 | 49.720001 | | 2026-06-23 19:00:32 | 49.73 | | 2026-06-23 18:25:32 | 49.737999 | | 2026-06-23 18:10:32 | 49.761002 | | 2026-06-23 18:20:32 | 49.77 | | 2026-06-23 17:55:31 | 49.777 | | 2026-06-23 18:30:32 | 49.784 | | 2026-06-23 18:50:31 | 49.786999 |

Now they are allowed under exceptional circumstances to go as low as

49.5Hz and up to 50.5Hz but that is a definite issue to be reported

The story is that they exceeded their own limits but claimed 'nothing happened' and the whistle blower *claims* that orders were given to erase records of internal decisions made with respect to this deviation.

If we look at the period in sequence and do not omit any readings - that is from 17:55 to 19:00: mysql> select timestamp, frequency from day where timestamp < '2026-06-23 19:10:00' and timestamp > '2026-06-23 17:10:00';

+---------------------+-----------+ | timestamp | frequency | +---------------------+-----------+ | 2026-06-23 17:10:31 | 49.876999 | | 2026-06-23 17:15:31 | 49.827 | | 2026-06-23 17:20:32 | 49.891998 | | 2026-06-23 17:25:32 | 49.859001 | | 2026-06-23 17:30:32 | 49.821999 | | 2026-06-23 17:35:32 | 49.839001 | | 2026-06-23 17:40:32 | 49.846001 | | 2026-06-23 17:45:31 | 49.812 | | 2026-06-23 17:50:32 | 49.825001 | | 2026-06-23 17:55:31 | 49.777 | | 2026-06-23 18:00:31 | 49.695999 | | 2026-06-23 18:05:32 | 49.816002 | | 2026-06-23 18:10:32 | 49.761002 | | 2026-06-23 18:15:32 | 49.720001 | | 2026-06-23 18:20:32 | 49.77 | | 2026-06-23 18:25:32 | 49.737999 | | 2026-06-23 18:30:32 | 49.784 | | 2026-06-23 18:35:31 | 49.902 | | 2026-06-23 18:40:32 | 49.915001 | | 2026-06-23 18:45:32 | 49.867001 | | 2026-06-23 18:50:31 | 49.786999 | | 2026-06-23 18:55:32 | 49.716 | | 2026-06-23 19:00:32 | 49.73 | | 2026-06-23 19:05:31 | 49.804001 | +---------------------+-----------+

WE can see that it was remarkably unstable. Symptomatic not of the 'nothing to see here' claim of NESO management and looking far more like 'disaster averted by the skin of our teeth, Ssh" don't tell'

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The Natural Philosopher 3 months ago

I think the issue is that with no actual network fault recorded NESO should be able to keep to the tighter limit. The looser limit is there for major outage type level. Now NESO has stated that there was no crisis. And yet the frequency was outside normal limits. Which is self contradictory. Furhermore it is alleged that this was covered up by NESO

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Nick Finnigan 3 months ago

There appear to be 2 statutory limits. 1% (0.5Hz), and 0.4% (0.2Hz), with intermediate frequencies allowed for a number of minutes per year. In which case we may not be able to tell by looking at one day's data.

There is also an interconnect agreement with the EU which may have been broken. On a day where the demand was not as high as in winter, not much different to the day before, with a predictable drop in solar at the time.

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Andy Burns 3 months ago

Do they still do adjustments to keep the number of AC cycles at

4,320,000/day for the benefit of synchronous clocks?

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The Natural Philosopher 3 months ago

They do, yes.

In Germany they relaxed all their frequencies to the extent that many industries with synchronous motors installed rotary converter or inverters to keep the machine frequency constant.

Renewable energy supplied by consumers who take no responsibility for it is a recipe for disaster and a f****ng nightmare. Hence why they are plating the game of wing and a prayer right now. The renewable dream must not be allowed turn into a nightmare. Unfortunately that is an engineering problem that is too expensive to solve. AS Juncker once said 'when things get difficult, you have to lie'

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John 2 months ago

GTR Class 700 and 717, August 2019

The frequency spec for the train supply was tighter than that for the power distributor. Recovery needed someone with a laptop rather than power off and on.

formatting link

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