Over the past year, the government’s energy narrative has been dominated by delivery. Great British Energy, the Clean Power Mission and a range of other flagship policies have all been framed around clear objectives: accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels, cut exposure to volatile global markets and position the UK as a clean energy superpower.
Whilst that focus has driven real momentum and ensured that the UK has moved quickly on building new sources of clean power, it has also brought another issue to the forefront – how to prepare the system to operate reliably under increasing stress, in conditions very different from those it was originally built for.
Resilience is not a new concern, and power failures have always had knock-on effects beyond the energy system. However, as the structure and makeup of the system itself changes, the implications of failure are becoming more pronounced. Particularly as the UK becomes more electrified, more digital and more interconnected, disruption now propagates faster, further and with fewer buffers than in the past.
Recent incidents have brought this into sharper focus. The substation fire that shut down Heathrow Airport, and on a global scale, the Iberian blackout which resulted in extended disruption across southern Europe, both exposed vulnerabilities in coordination and system design – with small points of failure escalating quickly, spilling over to affect transport, digital services and the wider economy.
Decarbonisation has altered the risk profile. Moving away from fossil fuels reduces exposure to fuel supply shocks, but increases dependence on networks, real-time monitoring and balancing and digital control systems. Intermittent generation means that system flexibility is ever more important, and ageing infrastructure must cope with rising demand at the same time as extreme weather events become more frequent and severe – with a 304% increase in UK storms in recent years. At the same time, the cost of failure is rising, with increasing electrification meaning that electricity underpins more of daily life and economic activity than ever before.
New demand pressures add further strain, as the rapid growth of data centres and AI-driven computing reshapes electricity use in ways the system was never designed to accommodate. These facilities are highly energy-intensive, geographically concentrated and increasingly treated as strategic economic assets. Even where national supply appears sufficient, local networks can come under acute pressure. Competition between data centres, electrified heating, EV charging and industrial demand risks creating bottlenecks that are difficult and expensive to alleviate once established.
Public tolerance for disruption may also shift. While minor, localised outages will likely remain an accepted reality, the political consequences of a large-scale or prolonged failure would now much greater in the current context of high energy bills and wider cost-of-living pressures. A serious outage could also be framed by net zero critics – fairly or not – as a failure of renewables or electrification, reinforcing scepticism about the pace and direction of the transition.
Government is ramping up activity in response. A dedicated Energy Resilience Strategy is due in 2026, alongside new taskforces and leadership groups designed to improve coordination across departments and industry. This recognition is welcome, but a persistent vulnerability remains – fragmented ownership. Responsibility for energy resilience is spread across multiple bodies, with various differing accountability levers – risking allowing gaps in preparedness to exist until they are exposed by failure.
The challenge now is not only whether the UK can build clean power, but also if it can run an increasingly complex system safely, predictably and under pressure.
