NESO’s North Hyde report: government response
The government’s action plan to address the findings of NESO’s review into the incident at North Hyde Substation and commitment to ensuring GB energy resilience now and in the future.
Applies to England, Scotland and Wales
Documents
Details
On Thursday 20 March 2025, a large fire broke out at North Hyde Electricity Substation in Hayes, London and disrupted power supply to over 70,000 customers and businesses. Though power was restored within hours, secondary impacts to the aviation sector due to the associated closure of Heathrow Airport continued to be felt for days.
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero commissioned the National Energy System Operator (NESO) to undertake a comprehensive review of the incident. The review was to identify lessons and recommendations for the prevention, and management of future power disruption events, and lessons for Great Britain’s energy resilience more broadly. NESO published their review report on 2 July 2026.
The government response sets a clear implementation plan to make progress against NESO’s recommendations, and sets out the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero’s commitment to improve GB energy resilience through an Energy Resilience Strategy.
The implementation plan sets out actions to deliver improvements across:
- resilience of energy infrastructure
- response and restoration of energy infrastructure
- enhancing the resilience of critical infrastructure to energy disruption
The plan has been developed in collaboration with the Energy Resilience Group (ERG). ERG is a partnership between government, the regulator, and industry, which ensures a joined-up approach to energy resilience, emergency response and recovery across GB.