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9 September 2003 - The UK government is putting pressure on transmission company National Grid Transco after a second major grid failure occurred in the UK. The blackout, this time in the Birmingham area of England on Friday, followed the major outage, which brought London to a standstill last month.
Energy minister Stephen Timms said he was "very concerned" about the power failure which left 200 000 consumers without electricity for forty minutes on Friday morning. "This second incident does raise questions about the reliability of the transmission network that I am pursuing as a matter of urgency with National Grid," said Timms in a written statement.
Timms said he expected a full report from privatised National Grid later this week, explaining a failure that cut supplies to 410 000 customers in south London and Kent on August 28. The blackout left the capital's transport network in chaos during the evening rush hour.
National Grid has said the London blackout and Birmingham incident were not connected and that under-investment was not the cause.
A spokesman for the grid said the recent failure in Birmingham was the result of circuit problems during the commissioning of new equipment in the area, where the company is investing £45m in the network.
Energy regulator Ofgem will be reporting on the failure by the end of September.
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