Keeping electricity flowing throughout the coronavirus outbreak
Millions of people rely on us every day to keep the lights on and since the coronavirus outbreak began we have been working hard to protect our colleagues and continue to deliver safe, secure and reliable electricity.
We have well-developed procedures in place to manage the effects of a pandemic and no one should be concerned about their electricity supply as more of us stay at home,
Coronavirus has however had a significant impact on demand for electricity.
You might think people staying at home and using more electricity would mean an increased overall demand across the country, but that’s not the case.
Electricity demand is actually significantly lower than usual, due to a decrease in energy use from commercial and industrial consumers.
For many the assumption will be that lower demand makes it easier for us to do our job, with less power needed and therefore less stress on the system.
In fact, as system operator, it’s just as important for us to manage lower demand for electricity as it is to manage the peaks – it's a different set of challenges that we plan for and are used to dealing with.
You can read more about those below but in the meantime, please continue to use electricity as you usually would …boil that kettle, tune in to your favourite TV show … there are teams of people working 24/7 at National Grid ESO, committed to making sure you can do just that.
