Section:GDN 1N PaGe:6 Edition Date:190821 Edition:01 Zone:S Sent at 20/8/2019 19:29 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Guardian Wednesday 21 Au g u st 2019
(^6) National
Toddler hurt
in fall from
second-fl oor
window at
resort hotel
Lightning strike blamed
for massive power cut
Josh Halliday
North of England correspondent
A toddler has suff ered multiple frac-
tures after falling from the second fl oor
of a hotel in Blackpool.
Emergency services were called
to the Rooms Inn Blackpool hotel, in
the town centre, shortly before 9am
yesterday to reports of a baby having
fallen from a window.
Lancashire police said that the
18-month-old girl had been airlifted
to Alder Hey children’s hospital in
Jillian Ambrose
Gwyn Topham
National Grid has blamed a lightning
strike for Britain’s biggest blackout in
more than a decade after it caused two
power generators to trip offl ine.
The lightning strike was one of
many to hit the grid on the same
day as the 9 August blackouts but in
an “extremely rare and unexpected
event” it managed to bring down two
electricity generators more than 100
miles apart.
The report revealed that National
Grid was unable to cover the losses of
power from a gas-fi red plant in Bed-
fordshire and a wind farm off the east
coast of England because it did not
have enough backup.
The power failures took place
within seconds of each other imme-
diately after the strike, according to
the report, causing chaos across much
of England and Wales.
Prof Dieter Helm , a government
adviser on energy policy, said: “The
key point is that the power cut should
never have happened in the fi rst place.
If power cuts can happen when just
two power generators drop off , then
something fundamental has gone
wrong.”
National Grid had only 1,000MW
in reserve as back up supply when the
power cuts took place. The combined
capacity lost from the two plants was
more than 1,300MW. In addition, the
strike may have triggered failures at
a string of “embedded ” generators –
such as small-scale renewables and
diesel farms – totalling an estimated
500MW. These off -grid generators are
not visible to National Grid.
The energy regulator has responded
by launching an investigation into
whether National Grid’s statutory
requirements, which are set by Ofgem,
Merseyside. The force said the tod-
dler was in a serious condition and that
inquiries were under way. No arrests
ha d been made.
Witnesses told the Blackpool
Gazette that the girl was feared to have
a fractured skull and chest injuries.
The owner of Rooms Inn Blackpool
said the injured girl was part of a fam-
ily of four who had been staying at the
32-room venue.
Wendy and Kevin Twiss, who run a
neighbouring hotel, raised the alarm
after hearing the girl fall into a yard at
the back of the building and look ing
require it to hold enough reserve elec-
tricity supplies to stabilise the grid
after power failures.
The Guardian revealed National
Grid had suffered three blackout
“near misses” in as many months after
similar-sized power failures in May,
June and July, which were all greater
than 1,000MW.
Ofgem will also investigate whether
the energy generators and regional
energy networks responded correctly
to the sudden loss in frequency caused
by the power plants’ trips.
Jonathan Brearley , a senior exec-
utive at Ofgem, said the regulator
had received the report and believed
there were still areas that needed to
be investigated.
“This will ensure the industry
learns the relevant lessons and clearly
establish whether any fi rm breached
their obligations to deliver secure
power supplies to consumers,” he said.
“The power cuts of Friday 9 August
caused interruptions to consumers’
energy and signifi cant disruption to
commuters. It’s important that the
industry takes all possible steps to
prevent this happening again .”
A separate investigation is being
conducted by Govia Thameslink
Railway (GTR) and the manufacturer
Siemens to discover why its new trains
were so badly aff ected by the power
cut. The class 700 and 717 trains, which
have been introduced on Thameslink
and Great Northern services over the
past three years, shut down after the
drop in frequency, although Network
Rail’s overhead power line supply
operated continually, according to
the National Grid report.
While about half the 60 aff ected
GTR trains were restarted by their driv-
ers, the rest required engineers to be
sent out, blocking tracks and causing
huge disruption on lines into London
St Pancras and King’s Cross. In total,
371 services were cancelled and 873
delayed, although other train types
were unaff ected by the power issues.
Steve White, the chief operating
offi cer of GTR, said that “a drop in the
frequency of the overhead line voltage
during the National Grid power failure
... triggered a safety mechanism on all
operational class 700 and class 717 Sie-
mens Desiro City trains, which caused
the trains to shut down, protecting the
onboard systems and electronics.”
He said Siemens and GTR had set up
a task force to analyse how their trains
reacted, and to minimise the impact
of any similar incidents in the future.
out to see her in distress. Kevin Twiss
told the BBC: “We just said to every-
one: ‘We need to get downstairs. We
need to go and help this little girl .’ I
looked up and saw who I believed
were the parents looking out of the
window.”
Twiss said he climbed over the wall
and picked the injured girl up before a
man he believed to be her father kicked
the gate open and took hold of her.
Kerry Wormald, a housekeeper at
the nearby Arabella hotel on Albert
Road, told the Gazette: “A young
man came running down to say that
there was somebody in the back alley
screaming that they needed an ambu-
lance. We ... couldn’t see anything, so I
went into the back alley to have a look
and as I went out I could hear a baby
screaming.
“It sounded like something was
coming from next door, so I shouted
over. I saw [a man] in the second fl oor
window on the phone ... We could hear
the sirens and I stood on the street with
a few other people fl agging it down.
The baby was on the full body stretcher
in a neck brace and she had a mask over
her face.”
Cambridge
London
Hornsea offshore
windfarm
shut down almost
simultaneously
Little Barford
Gas-fired power plant
tripped shortly before
5pm
Lightning strikes
occurred on the
transmission network
at 4.52pm
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