Alarms blare as a huge storm crashes in off the North Sea, taking out the St Fergus gas terminal in Aberdeenshire. A power failure renders the Hatfield Moor gas storage facility in Yorkshire useless. A foreign power attacks subsea power cables from Norway.
Stay calm, it’s only a drill. These are the sorts of eventualities the energy industry will simulate next week, as a routine annual emergency gas shortage drill takes on national significance. The length of the “Exercise Degree”, which is run by National Grid, has been doubled this year from two days to four and takes place on 13-14 September and 4-5 October. It could not come at a more relevant time: debate is raging over how probable blackouts are this winter and whether Liz Truss’s energy bills freeze increases that probability because she has not encouraged rationing.
