Leaked Report Points To Wind Farm Failure Causing UK Blackout

National Grid’s preliminary investigation into the blackout that caused widespread disruption in England and Wales last week has raised the possibility that it was caused by the world’s largest offshore wind farm accidentally going offline.

The provisional report, which was submitted to regulators on Friday, suggests for the first time that the Hornsea offshore wind farm, which is owned and run by Denmark’s Orsted, may have tripped offline seconds before an outage at a smaller, gas-fired station.



The findings, which were relayed to the Financial Times by people briefed on the report, suggest the blackout may have been avoided if not for an error at the wind farm.