News Electrical sub station near heathrow airport 'blows up'? - possible russians?

[Admin]

Wondering if this Heathrow thing it outside state actors like the ones with Paris Olympics or whatever it was that was on. Winter Olympics? Para? Can't remember.

Could a sub stations blow up and bellow orange smoke from it?

Seems fishy. Thought I'd ask the lads who would know.

 

[Rockingit]

More likely to be the 4,900 houses worth of EV points installed to avoid the ULEZ charge.........

 

[Rockingit]

Wondering if this Heathrow thing it outside state actors like the ones with Paris Olympics or whatever it was that was on. Winter Olympics? Para? Can't remember.

Could a sub stations blow up and bellow orange smoke from it?

Seems fishy. Thought I'd ask the lads who would know.

This would have had a certain former member who's name began with T, all over it for the tech, but yes. The transformers are cooled by oil, so if something goes very wrong then you end up with superhot oil going everywhere and igniting and until the switch gets flipped upstream the energy to keep it lit just keeps on flowing. In extreme cases you can even get the ferrite cores molten.

 

[Admin]

Seems they're reliant on just the one sub station.

That probably needs sorting!

 

[littlespark]

it’s just reminded me of a similar incident in Dundee a few weeks ago where a substation caught fire next to Overgate shopping centre.
I meant to mention it on here as one of our members lives in the city.


Could be anything from lack of maintenance to copper theft.

Isn’t this type of thing @Moley deals with?

 

[Admin]

Should they have fire suppression systems kick in? Or are we not that clever with it yet?

 

[Rockingit]

Seems they're reliant on just the one sub station.

That probably needs sorting!

Quick answer is I absolutely don't know so don't quote me, but my guess would be that this is probably an HV > MV substation (so 132kV to 66kV) which in turn will then be feeding multiple MV to LV (66-33-11 kV to 400v) substations dotted around - of which LHR will have many.

 

[UNG]

I'm surprised a site the size of Heathrow has not got it's own mini power station, I know of a few factories that have their own mini power station to give power resilience as if the process is stopped because of a power cut it could put the factory offline for month's in some cases

 

[Moley]

It wasn't me, I was nowhere near that area yesterday. Actually, I was but just passing by on the M4. I would guess Rockingit is right. If a 132kV TX goes down it'll take out all the subs until things can be rerouted.
@Dan yes, there are auto fire systems, or deluge systems, on transformers. Larger transformers are normally surrounded with those little glass bulbs that break at certain temperatures. Once they break they set off the system. You wouldn't want to be in a transformer enclosure when that goes off. You wouldn't be able to breathe.
At a guess I would say lack of maintenance could be an issue. I remember years ago before the UK olympics UKPN had a mad panic of servicing the tap changers on transformers all around London. They hadn't had proper maintenance for years and were worried they may have failures due to extra loading. We were really busy that year!
@Dan, in answer to your orange smoke take a look at these. Pretty old videos but fun!

 

[Rockingit]

It wasn't me, I was nowhere near that area yesterday. Actually, I was but just passing by on the M4. I would guess Rockingit is right. If a 132kV TX goes down it'll take out all the subs until things can be rerouted.
@Dan yes, there are auto fire systems, or deluge systems, on transformers. Larger transformers are normally surrounded with those little glass bulbs that break at certain temperatures. Once they break they set off the system. You wouldn't want to be in a transformer enclosure when that goes off. You wouldn't be able to breathe.
At a guess I would say lack of maintenance could be an issue. I remember years ago before the UK olympics UKPN had a mad panic of servicing the tap changers on transformers all around London. They hadn't had proper maintenance for years and were worried they may have failures due to extra loading. We were really busy that year!
@Dan, in answer to your orange smoke take a look at these. Pretty old videos but fun!

I just had a look and that station is a good couple of miles from the actual LHR complex, and there's a HUGE amount of other industries around there as well so my money would be it's maybe a 66, but one article has mentioned 25,000L of coolant oil so who knows. But yes, almost certainly going to be lack of maintenance.

But what it does bring to the fore is what we've all been saying for years - that the UK infrastructure is not designed and cannot cope with an 'all electric' energy policy.

 

[Admin]

@Dan, in answer to your orange smoke take a look at these. Pretty old videos but fun!

Wow is the orange smoke some metals melting? Trying to think which chemical makes orange in fireworks.

What made me think was the rockets being used around the world every day, they're often orange and thick black smoke so first split second thought was Russia lol

I'd have still been thinking that if i wasn't a member here

 

[westward10]

My mother lives half a mile from it strangely she had power out for an hour in the night but been okay since. It is a large building near the old Nestlé factory which is now just housing estates. I remember in the early 80s major cable upgrades from it, the doors have probably been locked since.

 

[Moley]

Wow is the orange smoke some metals melting? Trying to think which chemical makes orange in fireworks.

I'm not an expert on setting fire to transformers(!) but as far as I know that's just the oil burning. If there's problems in the transformer the pressure inside the tank can get very high. They do have a 'pressure relief device' which should vent the pressure and trip out the transformer but if the pressure build up is too fast or too high the transformer will just burst. Seen two in the last 2 years.

 

[Admin]

I'm not an expert on setting fire to transformers(!) but as far as I know that's just the oil burning. If there's problems in the transformer the pressure inside the tank can get very high. They do have a 'pressure relief device' which should vent the pressure and trip out the transformer but if the pressure build up is too fast or too high the transformer will just burst. Seen two in the last 2 years.

You're a star for replying mate.

Journalists need to be asking on this forum what's probably going on because the rubbish I've heard all day is rubbish.

Oh anti-swear kicked in haha

 

[Moley]

I bet farcebook is already full of conspiracy theories!

BTW, I've just gone black and white again :-(

 

[Moley]

Looks like Heathrow is starting to open. I'm watching a BA A350 landing at the moment and an BA A380 lined up coming in to land. Good old FlightRadar24

 

[UKMeterman]

Ok, it was a 275KV to 66 KV transformer on a twin transformer site. This provides power to one corner of Heathrow. I am supprised that LHR did not seem to have or were unable to have switching operations to take power from their other feeders. For details on the North Hyde grid supply point start here, https://ssen.tractivity.co.uk/images/blob/6744a18d-692c-4a10-b27f-f2c5cd2c3448/North Hyde Grid Supply Point - Strategic Development Plan - For consultation.pdf

 

[Teddy Lop]

I thought you'd use inert gas if anything for a substation? We had them in CAA facilities we did some work in; the only time the official, top down instructions are that in the event of the fire alarm sounding you "run like funk and GTFO"

 

[Moley]

Inert gas fire suppression is used in switch rooms. I seem to remember it's something like halon? Outdoors it's water.

 

[Moley]

There's 2 other 132kV subs near Heathrow. I'm surprised they haven't got feeds from them. Longford 132kV to the west and East Bedfont to the south. Open Infrastructure link

 

[UNG]

Inert gas fire suppression is used in switch rooms. I seem to remember it's something like halon? Outdoors it's water.

Halon was banned by the EU back in 2000 and phased out up to 2003 with no new installations although I think the regulation allowed existing halon systems to remain until such time that they were triggered or decommissioned there is a few alternatives around I remember a company developing a system using oxygen reduced (depleted) air where the oxygen was reduced to 9% so it would still support life as we only need / use about 4% of the oxygen in the air we breathe while combustion (fire) needs an oxygen level above 10% to support it

 

[snowhead]

According to the Heathrow boss last night they lost 2 out of their 3 supplies.
They can safely run on 2 but not on 1.
I'd guess they can run on 1 in a national emergency but not when they're having to manage 200,000 passengers.

Presumably the 2nd loss, assuming the first was the 275KV TX on fire, may have been from the other 275KV TX which was also shut down, due to the 275KV main incomer being remotely shut off due to unknown damage, to enable fire fighting.

Can't find where I spotted it but UKPN is the iDNO for Heathrow.

Post 39 on the below link suggest someone with knowledge of the site.

Substation fire / Heathrow rail closed (21/03/25) - Rail Discussion Only

Heathrow Express - half hourly service, for Airport staff ONLY towards Heathrow How is/was this being enforced?

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[UKMeterman]

According to the Heathrow boss last night they lost 2 out of their 3 supplies.
They can safely run on 2 but not on 1.
I'd guess they can run on 1 in a national emergency but not when they're having to manage 200,000 passengers.

Presumably the 2nd loss, assuming the first was the 275KV TX on fire, may have been from the other 275KV TX which was also shut down, due to the 275KV main incomer being remotely shut off due to unknown damage, to enable fire fighting.

Can't find where I spotted it but UKPN is the iDNO for Heathrow.

Post 39 on the below link suggest someone with knowledge of the site.

Substation fire / Heathrow rail closed (21/03/25) - Rail Discussion Only

Heathrow Express - half hourly service, for Airport staff ONLY towards Heathrow How is/was this being enforced?

www.railforums.co.uk

There are a number of feeds to the site, some are N+1 but did not take into account a 275KV supergrid transformer getting upset.

 

[littlespark]

I just found out it wasn’t the Russians after all….. It was Jimmy from 1979 public information film trying to get his frisbee back.

View: https://youtu.be/KryOYburlFI