The Government plans to launch an investigation into the major power cut that affected almost one million people in England and Wales 鈥 and was partly triggered by the loss of electricity from a Grimsby wind farm.
The blackout on late Friday afternoon brought travel chaos to the rail network, and affected the power supply to Newcastle Airport and Ipswich Hospital.
Power had to be restored to more than 900,000 customers after what National Grid Electricity System Operator said was the almost simultaneous loss of two large generators.
Orsted's Hornsea one offshore wind farm and a gas-fired plant at Little Barford in Bedfordshire were lost as the working week ended.
Andrea Leadsom, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, said Friday鈥檚 power outage had caused 鈥渆normous disruption鈥.
She added: 鈥淣ational Grid must urgently review and report to Ofgem. I will also be commissioning the Government鈥檚 Energy Emergencies Executive Committee to consider the incident.鈥
The committee will look at whether National Grid, which manages the electricity supply system, stuck to its processes and procedures and if these were fit-for-purpose.
It will also examine if there were technical performance issues in the country鈥檚 power system, the efficiency of communications around the incident and how power demand was restored.
According to Professor Tim Green, co-director of the Energy Futures Laboratory, Imperial College London, the first generator to disconnect on was the gas-fired plant at 4.58pm.
Two minutes later Hornsea One also disconnected. It is understood the loss of the gas plant may have tripped Orsted's largest wind farm, with the finely balanced grid dependent on a level of inertia to maintain operational frequency.
National Grid said it would seek to 鈥渦nderstand the lessons learned鈥 from the incident, while energy regulator Ofgem called for an 鈥渦rgent detailed report鈥 on what went wrong.
Duncan Burt, operations director at National Grid, said the power cut was an 鈥渋ncredibly rare event鈥, but back-up systems had 鈥渨orked well鈥 in response.
Speaking to the BBC, he explained that automatic processes triggered by the loss of the two generators had temporarily disconnected electrical demand across the country to 鈥渉elp keep the rest of the system safe鈥.
Mr Burt said the power cut had 鈥渘othing鈥 to do with changes in wind speed or the variability of wind.
He also said National Grid was 鈥渧ery confident鈥 there was 鈥渘o malicious intent or cyber attack involved鈥 in the incident.
National Grid said all demand had been restored by 5.40pm on Friday, but the knock-on effects of the blackout continued to hit the railways overnight into Saturday. Signalling was hit, with delayed rolling stock then left in the wrong parts of the country.
The scale of outage and the disruption it caused drew criticism from Labour and trade unions.
Shadow business and energy secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey and Manuel Cortes, general secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, both branded the incident as 鈥渦nacceptable鈥 and called for an account of what happened.
Hornsea One is still being built out from Hull, with less than 50 turbines remaining. It is operated and maintained from Grimsby, with power brought onshore at Horseshoe Point, skirting around North East Lincolnshire to North Killingholme, where a 拢25 million substation has been built to connect to the National Grid.
As reported on Friday, a spokesperson for the company said: "The 海角视频鈥檚 power network is a complex system that works together. We are currently working with the National Grid System Operator to establish the facts and sequence of events that have occurred in relation to the outages.鈥
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