UK: 1970s-style rationing as National Grid cuts off gas to factories

Vauxhall’s car plant at Ellesmere Port and British Sugar’s refineries at Bury St Edmunds and Newark are among nearly 100 factories that have had their energy supplies cut as Britain threatens to lurch from whiteout to blackout.

The National Grid has told British Gas and other power suppliers to cut or reduce their power to major corporate customers in a bid to preserve gas for domestic households as extreme weather caused a surge in demand.

Opposition MPs said inadequate energy planning by the government in previous years had left the country heading towards an “energy crisis” that could only dent the UK’s fragile economic recovery. The row is likely to spill out at the launch tomorrow of a major deepsea wind initiative by Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary.

Factories in the north-west of England and east Midlands are worst hit of the 94 customers who having their gas supplies axed for the first time in up to 20 years in some cases in a response to severe weather and creaking power infrastructure.

In the first tangible sign that fears over energy shortages are translating into supply disruption, the Grid has demanded cuts to those customers which signed “interruptible” contracts in return for cheaper prices.

In addition the Grid issued a second “gas balancing alert” in four days – the first time it has ever done so. The call to customers to voluntarily reduce useage whereever possible came as the supply squeeze was made worse by production problems at Troll, a Norwegian North Sea gas field.

Guardian