INFRASTRUCTUREHeathrow Fire Shows Just How Vulnerable U.K. Energy Infrastructure Is – We’ve Simulated the Major Climate-Related Risks
The closure of one of the world’s largest airports due to a failure of just one electricity substation underlines how important it is that critical national energy infrastructure –pylons, substations and so on –keeps functioning.
London’s Heathrow Airport has been forced to close temporarily after a fire in a nearby electricity substation. More than 1,300 flights have been suspended and thousands of passengers left stranded.
Substations take high-voltage electricity from pylons and transform it into the lower voltages you use at home. This happens in a transformer filled with oil to insulate the electricity. In this case, it appears that more than 20,000 liters of this oil caught fire.
The closure of one of the world’s largest airports due to a failure of just one electricity substation underlines how important it is that critical national energy infrastructure – pylons, substations and so on – keeps functioning. This is only becoming more important as demand for electricity increases, thanks to transport and domestic heating switching to lower-carbon electrified alternatives – notably electric cars and heat pumps.
Yet the UK’s energy system is facing growing threats from unprecedented risks. We still don’t know what caused the Heathrow fire, but it appears to be unusual in this regard, as threats to energy systems come mainly from extreme weather. In the UK, that tends to mean windstorms, flooding, heatwaves and associated wildfires, and cold spells.
2024 was the warmest calendar year on record, and the “fingerprints” of climate change are increasingly evident in more intense and frequent extreme weather events. It is crucial to ensure the energy network can handle this weather.
Gas and electricity operators in the UK have established protocols for managing networks in adverse weather, investing large amounts to protect critical assets. But recent events have exposed vulnerabilities. The storms Arwen and Éowyn left thousands without power for days, underscoring the previous UK government’s admission that the country is underprepared for extreme weather events.
Major Hazards to U.K. Energy Infrastructure
As part of a UK government research program on climate vulnerability, we identified four major climate hazards that affect the UK’s energy infrastructure. We then used high-resolution climate simulations to assess how these hazards would change in a worst-case scenario, where the world keeps emitting greenhouse gases as usual.
Windstorms: These are projected to increase in severity, especially in northern and western regions of the UK, posing risks to overhead power lines.
Hot spells: Extreme heat of 35°C or more, once rare, could happen every other year by the 2060s. This will strain electricity networks as buildings and pipes need to be cooled, while efficiency will be reduced and transformers may be damaged.
