North East Cambs to face blackouts within years, warns Malcolm Moss MP

Malcolm Moss MP warned today that homes and businesses across North East Cambridgeshire could face significant power cuts within years. For the first time since the three-day week of the 1970s, consumers will be told to prepare for blackouts when the supply of electricity will fail to meet demand at peak times.

Over the next few years the Government will close down several power stations across the country without having ensured that replacements are available in time. Many existing power stations, and particularly nuclear power stations, will have to close down either because they will have reached the end of their lives or because of new EU laws on pollution.

The small print of Whitehall documents reveal that Ministers are predicting that the increase in power cuts will reach 3,000 Megawatt hours per year by 2017 – equivalent to 670,000 people going without electricity for a whole day. This is considerable more than the entire population of North East Cambridgeshire, Cambridge and Peterborough combined.

In practice the blackouts are most likely to strike at peak times, particularly in the early evening during the winter months, hitting many more people for shorter periods when the need for electricity is greatest. The expected gap of 3,000 Megawatt hours could even mean hour-long power cuts for 16 million people simultaneously on a cold winter evening.

Malcolm Moss MP said:

“I am extremely concerned that homes and businesses in North East Cambridgeshire will face blackouts because the Labour Government put its head in the sand about energy policy for over a decade. Ministers have been forced to admit they expect the lights to go out for the first time since the three-day week of the 1970s.

“It beggars belief that an industrialised and developed nation like Britain must experience the sort of power cuts they have in parts of Africa and South Asia . While energy security has become more and more pressing, Labour has been hoping the problem would go away by simply ignoring it. It is time that this energy crisis is tackled, but I am certain we won’t see any action until there is a Conservative Government in power.”