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UK Braces for Blackouts, Gas Cuts in January in Emergency Plan

6Foot2

By 6Foot2
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6Foot2

6Foot2

Posted
Posted

NOTE: Not a political post: No political replies are expected, nor are they invited.

 

Link: UK Braces for Blackouts, Gas Cuts in January in Emergency Plan - Bloomberg

 

The UK is planning for several days over the winter when cold weather may combine with gas shortages, leading to organized blackouts for industry and even households.

 

Under the government’s latest “reasonable worst-case scenario,” Britain could face an electricity capacity shortfall totaling about a sixth of peak demand, even after emergency coal plants have been fired up, according to people familiar with the government’s planning. Under that outlook, below-average temperatures and reduced electricity imports from Norway and France could expose four days in January when the UK may need to trigger emergency measures to conserve gas, they said.

 

The scenario is “not something we expect to happen,” the government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said in a statement. “Households, businesses and industry can be confident they will get the electricity and gas they need.”...

 

In the eventuality that the reasonable worst-case scenario” is realized, is your network ready?...

southhamster

southhamster

Posted
Posted
And test your airircon/cooling, door entry, CCTV, etc. systems to see what happens to them if the power goes off for some time - some may not auto restart or fail in a stupid way.Can your server room run without a/c in the cooler months?
LeMarchand

LeMarchand

Posted
Posted
I would suggest that we need to be looking at making sure we all have UPS's that can gracefully shutdown servers in the next few months.

 

I already know that one of mine won't. Time to start nagging in Sept!

chris11256

chris11256

Posted
Posted (edited)

Alright on the server room UPS front, runtime testing earlier this year showed it's good for about 50 minutes. Come September I'm buying a UPS for the IT Office to cover us briefly in case of a during the day power cut. Otherwise I just need to get Powerchute to also shut down the SAN once it's finished turning ESX hosts off in the event of power loss & low UPS battery.

 

Do need to look into the air conditioning though! I've just got two standard Daikin units, so I don't think they'll auto restart on power failure.

Edited by chris11256
3s-gtech

3s-gtech

Posted
Posted
My server room has a fat generator hookup and changeover switch. Not exactly an eco friendly solution, nor cheap, but my UPSs won’t do more than 45 minutes!
  • 2 months later...
JRA

JRA

Posted
Posted
Just wondering, as I'm giving more thought to planning for this in case it happens, is there an obligation for schools to close should the MIS be unavailable for any length of time? I'm sure I heard (aeons ago) that this would be the case.
grahamd22

grahamd22

Posted
Posted
Ours had to run without A/C for a week and a half and we have only had the building for 1 and a half years !! The server room had flooded as not only had the non-submersible pump failed but it was pumping water all over the consumer board, who thought that was a good idea to place it directly below? but at least we caught it fairly early and now we have a lot more substantial pump and nowhere near the electrics now !! Thankfully my assistant had raised everything off the ground a few weeks prior.
DrCheese

DrCheese

Posted
Posted
Too simply close a school for the MIS not available would be a bit far surely, to close a school cause the heating was not working a bit more understandable.

 

I think we're fast reaching the point whereby things like the Internet connection being cut off for chunks of time will cause schools to close - If everything is on the cloud & isn't accessible without it then the school can't function.

Same with an MIS being dead - You can't take the legal registers, nor can you quickly revert back to paper copies.

  • Thanks 1
JRA

JRA

Posted
Posted
Too simply close a school for the MIS not available would be a bit far surely, to close a school cause the heating was not working a bit more understandable.

 

I think we're fast reaching the point whereby things like the Internet connection being cut off for chunks of time will cause schools to close - If everything is on the cloud & isn't accessible without it then the school can't function.

Same with an MIS being dead - You can't take the legal registers, nor can you quickly revert back to paper copies.

 

Thanks both. Yes I think I recall it being emergency contacts would be unavailable and therefore that fell foul of some safeguarding obligation. I'm not 100% sure on if that actually means we'd need to close pretty much the instant SIMS went off, but thought I'd ask in case anyone properly does know either way.

robintech

robintech

Posted
Posted
Is there a rechargeable POE injector that sits on the Ethernet cable and charges itself, then I could run the APs in a mesh mode, Wi-Fi controller or VM is about 200W, ISP router 50W, Core switch 200W maybe; and have no local servers running. Should last a long time on the UPS then
FN-GM

FN-GM

Posted
Posted
Just wondering, as I'm giving more thought to planning for this in case it happens, is there an obligation for schools to close should the MIS be unavailable for any length of time? I'm sure I heard (aeons ago) that this would be the case.

 

What does your BCP say?

psydii

psydii

Posted
Posted

So... we have emergency medical and contact information printed in a secure store on site. We also have paper registers printed ready to go, and can run for two days before we need to print more. So we can run without the main MIS for a day or so without major issue.*

 

We also have a container full of heaters, and air conditioners**

 

We can also enable registers/contact to run through alternative providers in the event they are up and for some reason the MIS is down for an extended period.

 

Finally, and somewhat theoretically, with careful execution we can (on reasonably bright, but not necessarily sunny day) run the internal lights, and the comms rooms from the solar array*** on the roof. We'd lose the airhandling units, water/heating pumps, the fridges/freezers in the kitchens, classroom sockets (so no IT suites, or IWBS, DT/FT hardware) But it could (perhaps) be done.

 

But of course it will be the middle of winter so the lack of heating and sunlight will probably force us to close the site.

 

 

*after a massive SIMS crash back in '04 lessons were learned.

 

**built up over a period of several years of heating/cooling issues.

 

***I am not sure how we ended up with this, but it certainly is taking the edge off the electricity price rises.

  • Thanks 2
FN-GM

FN-GM

Posted
Posted
If there were a BCP I would read it and find out.

 

Im actually quite shocked you don't have one. It's a basic document key to the running of any sizable organisation. Every school I worked at had one. It covered events such as disasters like fire as well as more minor events like power outages.

  • Thanks 1
JRA

JRA

Posted
Posted
Im actually quite shocked you don't have one. It's a basic document key to the running of any sizable organisation. Every school I worked at had one. It covered events such as disasters like fire as well as more minor events like power outages.

Don't get me wrong I'd like one for sure, as part of an up-to-date disaster recovery plan, but not long had the helm here and such things have to happen alongside other things.

 

Like iPads.

 

And getting off-site backups done for the first time, which are now happily in place.

 

And more iPads.

 

And also iPads.

FN-GM

FN-GM

Posted
Posted (edited)
Don't get me wrong I'd like one for sure, as part of an up-to-date disaster recovery plan, but not long had the helm here and such things have to happen alongside other things.

 

Like iPads.

 

And getting off-site backups done for the first time, which are now happily in place.

 

And more iPads.

 

And also iPads.

 

I’m not sure we are on the same page. A BCP isn’t an IT specific document. It would have been written by the SLT to cover a multitude of possible issues - not specially IT related. The BCP would influence decisions made across multiple departments across the school. For example - what would happen in regards to the school lunch if there is a power failure.

 

The DR plan would be a seperate document but linked to the BCP.

 

As your new your school might have a BCP but you might not know.

Edited by FN-GM
  • Thanks 1
  • 1 month later...
mikeprice

mikeprice

Posted
Posted

For information I have registered with 2 companies - Loop Energy and Hugo

They both use apps to access their systems - which access the smart meter database so you can analyse you energy usage more.

 

and to the point - both companies have contacted me with schemes where they will get hold of the 'government' (or whoever) subsidy for people who reduce their energy usage in the critical time period

when one of decided on

 

I have heard nothing from EDF so I can;t go through my energy supplier (no surprise)

 

I though people ought to know about this possibility as it is energy supplier independant

 

but look at the T&Cs!!!!

  • 4 weeks later...
southhamster

southhamster

Posted
Posted
Finally managed to get our oil boiler fitted with a plug/socket on the fused spur. Tested it this morning with my mains inverters and lifepo4 battery and it worked perfectly. Nice to know we can have hot water/heating etc. for a few hours if the power goes out.
  • Thanks 1

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