Major Power Supply Interruption In London

[Barmaid]

http://news.sky.com/story/power-outage-hits-london-underground-as-lines-suspended-13364459

Firstly, I hope anyone travelling in, to or from London gets to their destination safely.

Secondly, it's only a few weeks since Spain and Portugal had supply issues.  

Cyber attack?  Or should I go and put on my tin foil hat?

[Ellipsis]

Hmm, first Heathrow, then Spain/Portugal, now London Underground ... what a coincidence! 🤔

[albaqwerty]

Saddick Khan forgot to pay the bill

[Buenchico]

Most of the key lines (e.g. Circle, District, Central, etc) are all running normally:
https://tfl.gov.uk/tube-dlr-overground/status/

[Atheist]

Someone's showing off what they can do if they want to. Possibly another country's licensed geeks, or simply people doing what is fun and gives them a sense of power. Whoever it is, it shows that causing damage and harm is easier (and cheaper) by hacking than by sending in tanks or missiles. Maybe Putin has learned that lesson from the Ukraine affair.

[sandyRoe]

The Russians, or their agents, trying our defences?

[Hymie]

I recall a number of years ago a major power outage on the London Underground that was billed as a once in a 1,000 year event.

[rockyracoon]

Husband and kids are caught up in this. Nightmare. Lord knows what time they'll get home tonight

[Canary42]

The perils of privatisation. The greedy compamies cut back on expensive UPS to fund Board emoluments and Shareholders' dividends.

 

UPS=Uninterruptable Power Supply (as successfully practised by the IT dept where I last worked)

[Old_Geezer]

They need to find out how they were in a position to suffer a power failure and apparently no back up supply.  One would hate to speculate on any inadequacy of those managing the system.

[rockyracoon]

Our operator says there was a fire. You don't know what to believe. OH managed to get the Stansted Express from Tottenham Hale, so trains did run along the line they said there was a fire.

[Hymie]

There is one hell of a difference between a works IT system - with each PC drawing about 100W and a server/internet switch drawing a maximum of 1kW, and an electric passenger train system; on the London Underground each train is probably drawing more than 500kW.

 

The UPS required to run the London Underground for an hour would be larger than the largest building in London.

[youngmafbog]

I think you are a bit low on the draw of many companies IT, but you are correct in that even the largest wont be anything like an underground train, let alone all the lighting etc.

This is simply just aging infrastructure.  Although 'reneeable' energy is becoming a probelm in that its not so controllable on frquency as gas/coal generated thus putting peaks on the system.