Energy minister accused of misleading MPs over blackout threat

‘We have seen a conveyor belt of dismissals, denials, and downright lies,’ say Tories

An energy minister has been accused of misleading Parliament about the risk of blackouts to Britain’s power grid.

Michael Shanks denied to MPs that there had been “any kind of emergency situation” on June 23 when a heatwave piled strain on the national electricity system.

He also insisted it was “scaremongering” to suggest the country was “close to blackouts”.

But leaked documents from the National Energy System Operator (Neso), the government body responsible for keeping the lights on, have since revealed that engineers were forced to run the grid beyond safe limits.

The documents also acknowledged that “system security was compromised”.

Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, called on Monday for the Government to clarify whether Mr Shanks had been aware of this when he spoke in the House of Commons on July 15, or whether he was simply repeating information provided by Fintan Slye, Neso’s chief executive.

The Ministerial Code says it is of “paramount importance” that ministers provide truthful information to Parliament and correct any inadvertent mistakes “at the earliest opportunity”. Those who “knowingly” mislead MPs are expected to resign.

In a letter to Miatta Fahnbulleh, the new Energy Secretary, Ms Coutinho said it appeared that either Mr Slye had misled Mr Shanks “or the minister misled the House”.

A Whitehall source insisted on Monday that Mr Shanks stood by his comments.

But Ms Coutinho told The Telegraph: “The minister for energy told the House on July 15 that ‘at no point did we come close to a breach’ of reserve standards on June 23.

“It has since emerged through leaked documents that Neso’s own initial assessment showed exactly this had happened. The new Secretary of State must get to the bottom of whether her minister misled the House, and if so why.

“Did he just take the chief executive of Neso’s word that everything was tickety-boo? At every stage of this scandal ministers have had their heads in the sand, initially saying I was ‘scaremongering’.

“It’s time for them to wake up and do their job and hold Neso to account on behalf of the British public.”

It came as it also emerged that Mr Slye had been cut out of an independent investigation into claims that grid bosses ordered a cover-up of blackout risks, with lawyers involved in the investigation barred from sharing updates with him.

Mr Shanks said he and Ed Miliband, the then energy secretary and now Foreign Secretary, had been briefed by Mr Slye on allegations of a cover-up concerning June’s grid incident after Ms Coutinho raised the matter.

When answering an urgent question on July 15, the energy minister told MPs it was “scaremongering to take to social media or come to the House and somehow imply that we were close to blackouts, which is simply not the case”.

He added: “Let me state very clearly that electricity supplies were maintained throughout the June heatwave.

“No customer demand was subject to disconnection. Statutory frequency limits were maintained throughout the event, and the largest credible loss that could have occurred was also covered.

“Let me explain exactly what we mean by the margin in this instance. The margin represents the cushion of spare generation above the peak demand that is maintained by Neso, and at no point did we come close to breaching that.

“It did not indicate any kind of emergency situation. Demand was met, and those are the facts.”

Just two days after his statements, however, it emerged that Neso had itself produced internal reports warning that safety limits had in fact been breached on June 23.

The reports, first reported by The Times and confirmed by Neso, listed five constraint breaches across the transmission network which occurred with “no available pre or post-action mitigation options”.

They also revealed that “system constraints were breached and system security was compromised” during the incident.

The reports appear to suggest that Neso engineers were forced to run the electricity transmission grid beyond its normal safety margins.

This could theoretically have raised the risk of a network overload, potentially triggering equipment failures that could have resulted in power cuts.

Neso has insisted that the report findings are only preliminary and that a full review is under way.

Ofgem, the industry regulator, has separately commissioned Neso to produce another report establishing the circumstances of June 23 and how grid operators handled it.

In addition to this, Neso has hired lawyers at Eversheds Sutherland to investigate whistleblower claims that staff in the grid operator’s control room were ordered to play down the risk of blackouts and cover up how key decisions were taken.

That investigation is also being overseen by Ofgem, which said earlier this month that Mr Slye would not receive updates from the law firm unless it had been cleared by an independent panel first.

A spokesman for Neso said: “Given the seriousness of the allegations and the need to maintain independence of the investigation, we are clear that findings will not be shared with any of the Neso executive until the findings are finalised.”

 A Government spokesman said: “The UK has one of the most reliable electricity systems in the world – in its 75-year history, there has never been a complete grid shutdown.

“We are very confident in our security of supply arrangements, and that NESO have the tools they need to manage the system. 

“At no time has there been any concern about being able to meet demand in heatwaves.”

How many people in Britain can say they are ready for a situation where our electricity supply fails? For no lights, no phones, no transport, no industry?

Well, when the grid failed in Spain last year, that was exactly what happened.

Traffic, trains and lifts were stopped. Mobile phones and cash machines were rendered useless. Hospitals were forced to reprioritise. Millions lost in economic value, and sadly, lives were lost too.

That is why the revelations from within Britain’s electricity grid operator must be taken seriously. I first raised the concerns put to me by Neso whistleblowers in the House of Commons on July 7.

The main allegation is that our grid is not being run securely, and specifically that the standards put in place to prevent blackouts were breached on June 23 when an extreme but predictable heatwave put strain on our electricity supply.

Since then, we have seen a conveyor belt of dismissals, denials, and downright lies from Neso and ministers. The problem? Time and again, the whistleblowers keep being proved right.

At first Neso denied that standards were breached on June 23, telling staff and the press that the allegations were “false”. Ministers said I was “scaremongering” and the minister for energy even told the House categorically that “at no point did we come close to breaching” reserve standards.

However, it has since come to light through leaked internal documents that Neso’s own initial assessment of June 23 was indeed that they breached reserve standards, and that “system security was compromised”. Neso has confirmed these documents to be genuine and to date has not provided any subsequent assessment to contradict them. Strike one.

Senior management also criticised the whistleblowers internally saying on an all-staff call that they had “let them down”. They subsequently denied this was said, only for a recording to emerge to prove that it had been. Strike two.

Then ministers and Neso management insisted a supposedly “independent” investigation would take place, only for it again to become clear that this was far from the truth. Ministers and Ofgem had left Neso to set their own terms and mark their own homework, including by telling engineers that if they wanted to contribute, they had to identify themselves to the very Neso management whose necks would be on the line if the inquiry found them to be at fault. Strike three.

After my repeated complaints, some improvements have been made. But remarkably, despite ministers’ assurances, there is still no route for control room operators to raise concerns about grid security without going through Neso managers.

Mr Miliband was completely absent during this scandal, too busy trying – and failing – to become chancellor. His ministers have been firmly on the side of Neso management despite their repeated poor behaviour.

What’s worse is that on Friday a new leaked document showed that Neso knew well before the crises of this summer that more wind, solar and batteries were making it harder for the control room to forecast supply and demand, increasing the risk of blackouts and pushing up bills.

In response, they said they shared these findings with the Government. Despite the tiresome mantra that “every wind turbine and every solar panel makes us more secure”, it appears that both ministers and Neso had evidence to the contrary that they did not share with the public.

Whatever your view on renewables, it is clear that the more unpredictable wind, solar and batteries we pile onto our grid, the less engineers are able to perform the delicate balancing act needed to keep the lights on. The tightrope they walk for us on a daily basis is getting ever more frayed, and nobody in charge seems willing to listen to them.

The consumer cost of all of this is also rising. In short, if you don’t know what the weather is going to be like tomorrow, you need to have a lot of back-up power on standby in case the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine.

And if the wind blows too much, or if the sun is too shiny, you need to pay out at the last minute to switch things off. This balancing is an expensive business – costing us £1.5bn per year now but up to £10bn by 2030, all paid for through consumer bills.

These “hidden costs” are what triggered my battle to get the energy department to do a true costing of renewables. We have to look at their full system costs, not just their cost when the wind is blowing the Goldilocks amount.

Sadly, one of Ed Miliband’s first acts was to cancel that work, and to ask Neso to take it on instead. They promptly delivered one of the most discredited reports I have ever seen, showing through shameless statistical contortions that the Secretary of State’s dash to Clean Power 2030 was, conveniently, both achievable and consumer-friendly.

And here is the rub. As the sole shareholder of Neso, it is only the Secretary of State who can hold them to account. The Neso leadership’s craven support for his plans, worked out behind the scenes with his political advisers, show they had already given up on the standards of impartiality and integrity required from our independent public bodies.

Perhaps this is, in part, why ministers now seem so determined to turn a blind eye to their misdeeds. However, when public bodies face no accountability, there will always be one major loser: the British public.

In my three years covering the energy brief, I have never seen anything like this.

The fact that things have got so bad for expert engineers within our control room that they are talking to an Opposition politician and the press at huge personal risk is, frankly, shameful.

The ministers dismissing their concerns do these courageous individuals a huge disservice. We should not be denigrating them, we should be applauding them. I will not stop until they are heard.