I was at a public meeting last night at St Martin's church in Barnehurst. A team from EDF were there to answer questions about the vandalism and the power cut last week.
They were never going to get an easy time but I felt that they could have handled it better than they did.
Three issues stand out in my mind. David Evernett MP and a number of members of the audience asked about the quality of the security arrangements. If a could of vandals/potential thieves could do so much damage their arrangements are self evidently not good enough.
I raised concerns about resilience planning. Over 100,000 people reliant on a single pinch point is just not good enough.
The final and most heated point was around good will/compensation payments which everyone felt were inconsistent in their distribution and difficult to claim.
EDF can turn this around with a generous good will payout, an improvement to their security measures and an immediate plan to build better resilience into their network.
Newslinks for Monday 20th May 2013
57 minutes ago
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4 comments:
I think you're banging your head against a brick wall. The behaviour of the energy industry as a whole would indicate that consumers are the least of its concerns. Toothless and unwilling regulators don't help either. Perhaps that's something the Tories can sort? Regulators must be seen to be working for consumers.
Perhaps one of the points given by the EDF team is that of the four cables damaged only one had been replaced, before the meeting the second one replaced by the time of the meeting (so we were still vulnerable for power outages should anything happen) the third should be replaced in 2-3 months, but the four cable anytime between 1-2 years.
Wow now thats impressive, great point made by yourself at the meeting regarding the profits that EDF have just posted!
We should never have allowed our nation's power supply to be sold to another country's government. Our power distribution system was taken out of British National ownership when privatised so that it could be bought up by a company that is 85% owned by the French government.
This makes a mockery of the policy of privatisation or else shows that nationalised industries are not the most efficient means of running business. Either way the Tory policy of privatising monopolies has been shown to be seriously flawed.
EDF could have and should have protected the Dartford Creek site. They have had the capability to do this since January 2008 but chose not to implement it.
This link explains all
http://www.eye-ip.com/text.html.
“Case Study 2: Cellular solution for EDF security infrastructure
THE CHALLENGE: EDF Energy is one of the largest energy companies in the UK employing over 12,000 people. They are the largest electricity supplier for London, the south east and the south west of England and supply energy to around 5.1 million customers. EDF own and manage electricity distribution networks covering the south and east of England and operate coal-fired and gas-fired power stations, private CHP plants and wind farms. Over a quarter of the UK's population depend on EDF networks for electricity, therefore the reliability and security of the infrastructure is essential.
The Challenge for EDF was to provide live video from key but isolated facilities. Live video feeds were deemed essential to provide an instant response to a terrorist threat, criminal intrusion and to improve the safe working of the plant. EDF were looking for a cost effective solution as expensive microwave or satellite transmission seemed to be the only options as broadband is not available in many locations. They were equally looking for a rapid response capability to securing problem sites.
THE SOLUTION: Eye-IP are providing a sophisticated cellular solution to deliver live video from key but isolated locations. Using EDF’s existing security infrastructure (cameras, alarms, DVR’s etc) it can now transmit live video to EDF central control facility at Bexley Heath to authorised off site laptops and to key personnel on mobile handsets.
The technology used by Eye-IP was developed for military specialist units and therefore the video feeds are secure to military standards. The cameras (both indoor and outdoor) are linked to routers, supplied by Eye-IP, that transmit using secure private cellular networks with fixed IP addresses. The routers come with two network SIMS for added reliability.
EDF staff in the control centre or out ‘in the field’ can control (each camera, its presets and through PTZ control) and view live video 24x7. This feature enables staff to view the premises and likely problems (or threats) before they enter the facility. The Eye-IP system uniquely enables EDF staff to create high resolution images from the video recorded in real time and to go back and to create the same high quality images from historical video.
This is ideal for both covert and overt activity and is of such high quality (with time and date stamps) that it can be used for evidential purposes and also an invaluable health and safety feature. “
I hope they are investigated thoroughly and found wilfully negligent. Their licence should then be removed.
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