2003 London blackout
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The 2003 London blackout was a serious
power outage A power outage (also called a powercut, a power out, a power failure, a power blackout, a power loss, or a blackout) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user. There are many causes of power failures in an electricity ...
that occurred in parts of southern
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
and north-west
Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
on 28 August 2003. It was the largest blackout in
South East England South East England is one of the nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It consists of the counties of Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Berkshi ...
since the Great Storm of 1987, affecting an estimated 500,000 people. Power went off at about 18:26 British Summer Time. Power returned after 34 minutes at 19:00 BST, but is reported to have taken about two hours to be restored fully in some areas.


Media coverage

Even before the blackout, the UK press were anticipating a UK equivalent of the
Northeast blackout of 2003 The Northeast blackout of 2003 was a widespread power outage throughout parts of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States, and most parts of the Canadian province of Ontario on Thursday, August 14, 2003, beginning just after 4:10 p.m ...
in North America, which occurred two weeks earlier (August 14) and affected about 100 times more people. For example, on August 15, The '' Daily Express'' had reported that the National Grid might not be able to cope with predicted power surges within the winter of 2004. On the day of the blackout the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
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reported major problems on transport including the London Underground. Later it became clear to the press that the blackout might not be directly attributable to underinvestment, but this was still the main thrust of the stories: e.g. ''
The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'', 30 August: ''"Just admit it, Mr Urwin. National Grid needs to invest more"''. On 8 September the London ''
Evening Standard The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format. In October 2009, after be ...
'' ran a story ''"Blackout report will take weeks"''. On 10 September National Grid published a 43-page report describing the causes of the blackout (and made it available on the internet). The national
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...
TV evening news did not cover this. In mid-October an anonymous National Grid engineer spoke to the BBC. It emerged that there may have been a maintenance problem not covered in National Grid's report (see below).


Causes

Initial reports were that there appeared to be a problem with a cable feed from the national grid in the Wimbledon area of south London. A spokesman for National Grid said it was "an unusual occurrence", but "not even vaguely on the scale of what happened in the U.S.", adding that there was a fault in the 275 kV system. Later National Grid's report revealed that the second fault, and the ultimate cause of the blackout, was the fitting of a wrongly rated part in a backup system - a Buchholz protection relay had the wrong setting; similar to fitting a 1 ampere fuse instead of a 5 ampere fuse. The first fault was a problem with a different transformer. The impression was given that this first fault was in a sense routine - about 13 such faults happen in a year. Normally it would be possible to switch the transformer that faulted first, out of the system and continue with power uninterrupted using spare capacity on the adjacent second transformer, also in Wimbledon, but in this case the switch over exposed the human error in using a part with the wrong setting on the second transformer. On 17 October it emerged that the first transformer fault was due to an oil leak, spotted some weeks before the blackout. The oil had been topped up but the leak had not been cured. National Grid's Director Of Transmission admitted to a "small backlog" of maintenance checks.Oil leak 'caused London blackout'
BBC NEWS


Effects

The London Fire Brigade took around 400 calls and made hundreds of rescues for people stuck in lifts. All main rail services were at a standstill in south London and the south-east. Sixty percent of the
London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The ...
was affected (London Underground had shut down the last of their independent generators in favour of using Grid supplies in 2002) and people were stuck underground. 270 sets of traffic lights were hit. To relieve the transport problems, buses accepted train and Tube tickets. Thousands of people took to the rain-soaked streets. Pubs filled up with people sitting out the delays.


See also

*
List of power outages This is a list of notable wide-scale power outages. To be included, the power outage must conform to of the following criteria: * The outage must not be planned by the service provider. * The outage must affect at least 1k people. * The outage m ...
*
Brittle Power ''Brittle Power: Energy Strategy for National Security'' is a 1982 book by Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, prepared originally as a Pentagon study and re-released in 2001 following the September 11 attacks. The book argues that the U.S. do ...


References


Further reading

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:2003 London Blackout Blackout London Blackout, 2003 London blackout London blackout, 2003 National Grid (Great Britain) London blackout, 2003