The statement made by Michael Shanks, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, in the House of Commons on 30 April 2025.
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the resilience of the UK’s energy grid in the context of the widespread power outages experienced across the Iberian peninsula over the past two days. My thoughts are with all those affected by the widespread disruption across that peninsula on Monday. I am glad to hear that power has now been fully restored across the region.
I want to reassure the House that Great Britain has a highly resilient energy network, and that the incident in Iberia has not impacted Great Britain. The Secretary of State has been in regular contact with the National Energy System Operator over the past two days, and it has provided reassurance that there is no increase in risk to our energy supplies or system stability from this incident.
My Department was informed on Monday 28 April by NESO that a power outage had occurred across the Iberian peninsula, affecting mainland Spain, Portugal, Andorra and areas of France. While all power was restored to the impacted areas yesterday, Tuesday 29 April, the disruption had cascading impacts on other sectors across the vast majority of Spain and Portugal. The cause of the outage is yet to be confirmed; it is likely to take some time for the Spanish network operator to carry out a thorough investigation to determine the exact cause of the failure. Various independent reviews have been commissioned by Spain, Portugal and the European Commission to understand the cause.
Although GB is not directly connected to Spain and Portugal’s grid, NESO is in close contact with European counterparts, and is offering support where needed. The Government are closely monitoring the situation and are in contact with the Spanish and Portuguese authorities to ensure the safety and wellbeing of any British nationals in the affected regions.
I turn to our grid’s resilience, and our preparedness in the context of recent events on the Iberian peninsula. An event similar in impact in Great Britain would be equivalent to a national power outage—a total loss of power across the whole of GB—which is listed on the national risk register as a high-impact but low-likelihood event. In its 75-year history, Great Britain’s national electricity transmission system has never experienced a complete shutdown, or anything on the scale of what has happened in Spain over the past few days.
Our electricity system is highly resilient. The National Energy System Operator continuously monitors the condition of the electricity system to ensure there are sufficient inertia and reserves in the system to manage large losses and prevent large-scale power outages. NESO has also introduced innovative new approaches to managing system stability, as well as advanced safety systems to help to prevent such events from happening in GB. The system is built, designed and operated to cope with the loss of key circuits or systems without causing customer impacts. There are multiple redundant alternative routes through which power can flow should a fault occur, minimising the risk of a single fault cascading across the entire system to cause a total or partial electricity system shutdown.
However, as a responsible Government, we prepare for all eventualities, no matter how unlikely. I would like to reassure the House that the Government work closely with industry to continually improve and maintain the resilience of energy infrastructure, networks and assets to reduce vulnerabilities. This work includes having robust emergency plans, summarised in the national emergency plan for downstream gas and electricity, and regularly exercising emergency plans with the energy industry and Ofgem. That includes an exercise carried out by the previous Government; we have been taking forward the recommendations from that exercise. This work is ongoing across Government to ensure we are as resilient as possible as a nation in all eventualities.
We have also empowered the independent National Energy System Operator to carry out resilience functions across the electricity and gas systems, and will continue to work with industry and regulators to improve and maintain the resilience of old, new and future energy infrastructure. Switching fossil-fuelled generation for home-grown clean energy from renewables, nuclear and other clean technologies is the route to long-term energy security. I will speak more broadly about the UK’s energy resilience in a debate in Westminster Hall on Tuesday.
To conclude, Great Britain has a resilient energy network, and we will ensure that that continues to be the case. I commend this statement to the House.