Power plant flood risk review planned

By Daniel Fineren

LONDON (Reuters) - The government wants companies to reassess the flood threat to electricity substations after one of those thought to be least at risk was nearly engulfed over the weekend in the worst flooding to hit Britain in 60 years.

Western England came perilously close to a mass blackout earlier this week as emergency services and the military worked overnight to prevent a substation near Gloucester from being completely overwhelmed by the floods.

The rising waters of the river Severn came within inches of forcing the switching station at Walham to shut, which could have left half a million homes and businesses powerless.

Walham was not even identified among the top 1,000 substations most at risk from flooding in a recent nationwide study ordered by the government in 2005, so it wants companies to do it again.

"We will be writing to electricity companies very shortly to ask them to update their information on substations at risk of flooding in order to reassess the national position," a spokeswoman for the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform said.

"Obviously there had been flooding on a considerable level and it's important that we look at where things are at this point."

The risk assessment ordered by the government after a substation was flooded in Carlisle, northwest England, in 2005 identified 820 plants that could be at risk from the kind of floods that could be expected every 100-200 years.

Another 220 were identified as being at risk of being inundated only once every millennium. Walham did not even fall into that group, so the government thinks power companies need to think again.