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Loss of mains electricity

You may find your workplace, or home, has lost power because of:

Local disruption

Local disruption may happen as a result of extreme weather conditions or from a local technical failure. There may be an unexpected loss of supply to an entire region (or devolved administration) for up to 24 hours, and to some rural areas for up to one week.

Planned power cuts

There may be planned four hour rota cuts because generational capacity has been reduced, which may happen under various scenarios.

If there is an unexpected total shutdown of the grid, power will begin to be restored within 12 hours, starting with rural areas, until power is restored across the grid over three days.

This scenario is based on loss of electricity supply nationally. The UK national grid has never experienced a shutdown and safeguards are in place to prevent it.

Loss of mains water and sewerage

You could find there is a loss of water or sewage capacity if:

Water/sewerage infrastructure or its support services have failed

Mains water supplies would be denied across a substantial part of the country for up to three days with a subsequent three days of disruption possible. There would be a serious disruption to sewerage.

Mains water supplies are unavailable across a locality for up to a week

This could happen if a local water system became contaminated accidentally by a non-toxic chemical. The recovery time is determined by the nature and extent of contamination and mitigation measures that might be introduced.

Loss of availability of oil and fuel

If fuel distribution stopped, petrol stations and commercial supplies could be exhausted within 48 hours, with normal levels fully restored 10 days after the emergency.

Risks

This situation may arise following industrial action by fuel contract drivers or if there is international disruption in oil supply.

Central government could take emergency powers under the Energy Act 1976. This would enable the government access to one or more of the emergency response tools available under the National Emergency Plan for Fuel, including:

• forecourt supply management to restrict the amount of fuel that retail customers can purchase at any one time under a 'maximum purchase scheme' in order to conserve fuel available at sites and to provide a fair allocation to customers
  
• Under the emergency services scheme and utilities fuel scheme essential blue light and utility logoed vehicles would have access to fuel through designated filling stations.
  
• The bulk distribution scheme to prioritise individual grades of fuel to bulk customers including domestic allocation of marine and aviation fuels.

• National Emergency Plan for Fuel Opens new window

Loss of gas

Loss of gas supplies may occur following a failure or severe damage at a main gas terminal. Serious damage may be enough to disrupt national energy supplies for two winters.  Industrial accidents could cause short term losses to localities; however supply should normally be restored within days.

There may be  the risk of involuntary interruptions to the industry (and potentially domestic supplies). Protracted gas loss could result in  four-hour rota electricity cuts across the UK.

Loss of electronic communications

A loss of electronic communications could be linked to a loss of confidentiality and/or integrity of communication, and a loss of access to the internet and dependent services (eg. email).

The loss of public telecommunication services in a region could last for up to five days. There would be denial or severe disruption to dependent systems, including the internet (world-wide web and email), cash machines, and mobile phone networks.

Physical damage could happen to to the telecoms infrastructure eg fire or flood. In this case the loss of Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and dependent systems could last for up to three days, affecting up to 150,000 people in a local area.