A fire at a west London substation that caused the shutdown of Heathrow Airport was caused by a preventable technical fault that had been discovered seven years before but had not been fixed, a report has found.
Energy watchdog Ofgem has launched an investigation after a report by the National Energy System Operator (Neso) said an “elevated moisture reading” had been found in oil samples at the North Hyde substation in July 2018, but action was not taken to replace electrical insulators known as bushings.
In 2022, a decision was made to “defer basic maintenance” at the substation, meaning the issue went “unaddressed”, the final report said.
On Wednesday, Ofgem said it had opened an official enforcement investigation into National Grid Electricity Transmission (NGET) based on the Neso review’s findings.
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