Heathrow closed

[dasnutnock3]

Couldn't they have a big back up generator somewhere?

To power one of the world's busiest airports? No chance. Electrical power consumption of LHR must be colossal.

[delbert]

On a Lear jet to a vital climate conference in the Bahamas, probably.

I was hoping the gormless bag of twat was on his way back from one, and due to land at Heathrow......

[mumbles87]

To power one of the world's busiest airports? No chance. Electrical power consumption of LHR must be colossal.

Heathrow uses 271,000 MWh per year

To put that in comparison the London underground uses 1215978 mwh per year (just the tube, not head offices, Elizabeth line etc)

The DLR network uses 52889 mwh per year

[Metal Hammer]

I'm surprised the airport doesn't have it's own more local substation rather than the one I've seen on the BBC report which appears to be up North Hyde Lane in the direction of Western International Market.

[Bend it like Repka]

As someone who doesn't like flying, I can't think of anything worse than getting half way across the Atlantic and having to turn around and go back.

[Puff Daddy]

I've been giving more thought to this. The very thought that the World's busiest airport still relies on an old and creaky electricity sub station for its power, surely sums up everything that is wrong with Broken Britain. What the mighty German Luftwaffe could not achieve in the summer of 1940, this achieved in 24 hours, the closure of the skies over West London

[sendô]

I'm surprised the airport doesn't have it's own more local substation rather than the one I've seen on the BBC report which appears to be up North Hyde Lane in the direction of Western International Market.

I don’t do transmission, but from the pictures that substation looked like a major switching station. Maybe from transmission (400kV or 275kV) to distribution voltage (132kV) or at the least distribution down to useable voltages.

You’re typically not going to get many of them in built up areas, because you either need to a) have overhead power lines passing over peoples homes, or b) have EHV cables running underground, which is incredibly expensive (I have seen a 400kV insulated underground cable, it is huge).

As for back up generators to meet the full airport demand, basedon mumbles annual energy consumption figures, that’s an average power demand of about 35MVA. You’d need about 14 generators just to meet that demand, each using about 500l/hr of diesel at full tilt. You then also need to allow extra gens in case 1 or 2 are out on maintenance, 1 or 2 fail to start etc. That’s basically a grid sized generation station in itself.

The only other way to do it is to also connect Heathrow to another distribution substation that connects to another part of the grid. Which can also be very expensive.

[westham,eggyandchips]

I wonder how long we'll be pretending that Russia wasnt involved in this. Same as the ships colliding in the North Sea.

Accident my arse.

[Metal Hammer]

I don’t do transmission, but from the pictures that substation looked like a major switching station. Maybe from transmission (400kV or 275kV) to distribution voltage (132kV) or at the least distribution down to useable voltages.

You’re typically not going to get many of them in built up areas, because you either need to a) have overhead power lines passing over peoples homes, or b) have EHV cables running underground, which is incredibly expensive (I have seen a 400kV insulated underground cable, it is huge).

As for back up generators to meet the full airport demand, basedon mumbles annual energy consumption figures, that’s an average power demand of about 35MVA. You’d need about 14 generators just to meet that demand, each using about 500l/hr of diesel at full tilt. You then also need to allow extra gens in case 1 or 2 are out on maintenance, 1 or 2 fail to start etc. That’s basically a grid sized generation station in itself.

The only other way to do it is to also connect Heathrow to another distribution substation that connects to another part of the grid. Which can also be very expensive.

That's far too technical for me, I'll take your word for it

[bonzosbeard]

I wonder how long we'll be pretending that Russia wasnt involved in this. Same as the ships colliding in the North Sea.

Accident my arse.

You can't help but think it.

But even if not them, we've just signposted a small little suburban street with some electrical stuff in it that's easy to bring Britain to a standstill.

Again, why have we not got a ministry for resilience.

We look very poor in terms of fighting ability too.

[SammyLeeWasOffside]

Again, why have we not got a ministry for resilience.

How much resilience would you want to pay for?

[dasnutnock3]

How much resilience would you want to pay for?

Exactly. No one wants their taxes being wasted on continuity of public services and infrastructure, they want it spent on Baronesses yachts.

[kenthammer]

https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expe ... er-outage/
Some "expert" views for those interested

[SammyLeeWasOffside]

Exactly. No one wants their taxes being wasted on continuity of public services and infrastructure, they want it spent on Baronesses yachts.

How much would it cost to have just one level of resilience built in to every train station and airport? A second substation on standby at every transport hub? If this was Russia then they would know about the back up one and hit that at the same time, so so we have a third or fourth standby everywhere?

Its one day at one airport in how many years? That seems pretty resilient.

[mumbles87]

How much would it cost to have just one level of resilience built in to every train station and airport? A second substation on standby at every transport hub? If this was Russia then they would know about the back up one and hit that at the same time, so so we have a third or fourth standby everywhere?

Its one day at one airport in how many years? That seems pretty resilient.

Also aren't we overreacting a tad? It's inconvenient yes but how dangerous was it? IE plans diverted away from area and a decision made to not open..very safe

We have back ups at work to get trains into platforms and then evacuate people safely out of the network

Events like this can happen just seems the emergency plans were followed . Which are cheaper than building back ups for 1 off events

[Junco Partner]

Its one day at one airport in how many years? That seems pretty resilient.

Also aren't we overreacting a tad? It's inconvenient yes but how dangerous was it? IE plans diverted away from area and a decision made to not open..very safe

Was thinking the same about our OTT media coverage on Friday, it was lead story on almost every bulletin, national disaster levels of hysteria, 5live had a reporter broadcasting 'from the scene' AKA a long stay carpark nearby...

A relatively tiny number of people in the UK were mildly inconvenienced for half a day.

Thoughts and prayers etc...

[bonzosbeard]

Was thinking the same about our OTT media coverage on Friday, it was lead story on almost every bulletin, national disaster levels of hysteria, 5live had a reporter broadcasting 'from the scene' AKA a long stay carpark nearby...

A relatively tiny number of people in the UK were mildly inconvenienced for half a day.

Thoughts and prayers etc...

Well the cost to the economy would be millions.

Plus now we know how to incapacitate Heathrow, and if the other two transformers had gone too I expect it would have closed for more than a day.

I would have expected that, just like the national grid does for the country, an alternative switch if a substation goes down.

[chelmsfordhammer91]

If GB News is your thing, they were running with 'Britain closed to the world' all day. Followed by flight radar data showing where planes were being diverted to etc.

[mumbles87]

Was thinking the same about our OTT media coverage on Friday, it was lead story on almost every bulletin, national disaster levels of hysteria, 5live had a reporter broadcasting 'from the scene' AKA a long stay carpark nearby...

A relatively tiny number of people in the UK were mildly inconvenienced for half a day.

Thoughts and prayers etc...

Romish did an excellent sketch on it a while ago. Don't worry about attacking the west. They carry on. Just mildly inconvenience them they never shut up about it

[mumbles87]

If GB News is your thing, they were running with 'Britain closed to the world' all day. Followed by flight radar data showing where planes were being diverted to etc.

Didn't we have an actual more important event a few years ago when the NATS went down? Closing the air space whilst they had to go back to the failsafe routing system?



Here we go

https://incident.io/hubs/learning-from- ... -its-knees