The head of the National Network says that Heathrow has a “sufficient force” despite the closure of the fire

National Grid CEO insisted that the electricity transport network has been able to feed enough energy to Heathrow all over the airport closing last week, as airlines wrath have grown from the closure decision for about 24 hours.

In his first comments since then Fire On Thursday night, John Petrigo told the Financial Times that while the “unprecedented” fire left the northern Hyde branch, two others were working on Heathrow working throughout the accident.

“There was no lack of ability from sub -stations,” he said. “Every individual station can provide sufficient energy for Heathrow.”

Heathrow It is closed almost on Friday after the fire stations fire, causing a disturbance that is expected to cost tens of millions of pounds. More than 1300 trips have been canceled, affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers.

The airport said that although it is able to operate its full operations with energy from only two stations, it had to “re -create” its internal electrical networks to make the switch safely.

Thomas and Oldby, CEO of Heathrow, said during the weekend that the airport also had to restart thousands of systems safely – from luggage belts to air bridges.

It seemed that some blame had turned into the energy industry, as the BBC told Heathro to evaluate whether it needs “a different level of flexibility if we could not trust that the network around us is working in the way you should work on.”

But Pettigrew said: “It was always improved for distribution companies and Heathrow to take power.” He added that it was a “question to Heathrow” about the reason for taking the action it took.

“The loss of sub -event is a unique event – but there were two others available,” he said. “This is the level of flexibility.”

National Grid owns the high voltage transport network in Britain, including sub -stations around Heathrow, where electricity is fed in low voltage distribution networks and then to homes and businesses. SSEN has a distribution network in the region.

When they started restoring their operations during the weekend, airlines began to question the length of the closure, and whether it was possible to reopen some peripheral stations sooner.

One of the senior executives said that the airlines were “paying and paying” Heathrow to reopen them.

They said: “It is not clear why Heathrow made the decision early to close the airport throughout the day … It is clear that flights to Station 5 could have been enabled early on Friday afternoon.”

Another executive official said that “many” airlines expect to reopen the airport more quickly, although they admitted his administration that faced “difficult” decisions.

A third agreed to have questions about whether all the peripheral stations should be closed for a long time.

Weldby said that Heathrow was reopened as quickly as possible, and that the airport faced a “major” and “unprecedented” event.

Their ministers Investigation In the accident, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said on Sunday that the turmoil had confirmed the need for the new airport capacity in London, including A third runway In Heathrow.

The closure of the aviation industry is expected to cost about 60 million pounds to 70 million pounds, according to Andrew Light, a former adviser and chief executive of the British Iag.

Airlines do not have to pay direct compensation to customers, but it must cover hotel bills and other turmoil. Heathrow said it is not responsible for the costs of airlines.

“We are already paying enough services in Heathrow, we cannot also pay where there is a lack of flexibility and failure of this type, whether it is Heathrow or its suppliers,” said Nigel Wiking, CEO of Heathrow AoC, who represents the airport.

Petrigu said the fire in the North Hyde subcontinent – which firefighters said the most radiation is 25,000 liters of cooling oil – was so fierce that he had damaged all three transformers on the site, including one for the backup and away from the other two.

He added that the cause of the fire was not yet known because it is still very hot for full forensic works, with the non -exclusion of third -party participation. The anti -terrorist police are investigating, but it said there are no signs of wrong play.

“I cannot remember a failed transformer like this in more than 30 years of industry,” said Betigero.

When asked about the reason for designing the site, which was built in the 1960s, in a way that all the three transformers could expel with one fire, he said: “You have to build the sub -stations in the available space, and you are clearly doing everything you can to relieve risks.

“But this is something clearly I think the investigation will be discussed further.”

The fire comes at the sub -station at a time more concerned about the risk of damage to the critical national infrastructure in the United Kingdom, given Russia’s war against Ukraine.

FT reported on Friday that the infrastructure owners were urged in November to be full of full of reliable threats from Russia.

In response to a question about his concern about Russia’s threat, Petrigu said: “We are always focused on the security of our origins. I will not go into the details of that.”

There is also an increased audit on electricity networks in general, given the shift away from fossil fuels, which includes more dependence on equipment that works on electricity from the wind and solar farms.

“This year alone, we are investing 10 billion pounds in the network, and Peetigrew added:” Over the next five years on the transportation system, we have just made a plan worth 35 billion pounds.

“So I am completely reassured and certainly we are investing in the network for the sake of steadfastness for safety.”