Heathrow outage highlights weak points in critical power resilience

The war in Ukraine was the most severe and obvious warning about Europe's need to rethink its energy security. And yet, perhaps it was another episode, more anecdotal but equally relevant, that best illustrated where the weak spot resides today: the unexpected failure of an electrical substation in London paralysed the Heathrow airport, one of the world's most trafficked, for a whole day, and caused chaos that took weeks to be solved.

Heathrow outage highlights weak points in critical power resilience

The shutdown of Heathrow Airport following a substation fire last month has highlighted systemic vulnerabilities in power resilience across critical infrastructure, according to Finning UK & Ireland. While the airport was forced to cancel or divert more than 1,300 flights, essential services and businesses in the surrounding area remained operational, many supported by independently installed diesel standby generation systems. The fire, which br…