The UK is a world leader in fusion research, now is the time for the government to invest in this area! Fusion if it can be made to work has the potential end our reliance on fossel fuels.

Chris, Abingdon, Oxfordshire

Richard in Bexhill, the word is solar! Pity our (US) government will not take it seriously and get the techies moving on making it practicable.

Linda, Albany, NY,

Electricity supplies,like oil, are subject to outside influence. In the case of oil when the price appears to be on a downward trend you can bet that a 'kidnapping' in Nigeria, or a belligerant statement by Iran will force it up again. It is pure manipulation. We need Nuclear power urgently!!.

pw, sutton, uk

Thatcher set Britain on the road to energy famine by her derire to destroy the miners union. Many coal mines have closed that would have ensured energy self sufficiency for decades, with clean burn technology pioneered by South Africa.
Now we will be beholden to Russia. Well done Maggie

David Glen, Glasgow, Scotland

This was always on the cards to happen no matter who owned the generating assets. The important thing to note is that the low frequency load shedding worked correctly, otherwise it could have been a lot worse - a complete country wide blackout?
Interesting to see how the wind generators contributed

John Woodhouse. C.Eng., Brighton, E. Sussex

There are some reports circulating among energy traders that it was caused by suppliers taking power out of the market to force up the wholesale price. The UK has limited security of supply since the energy sector was privatised and Ofgem is an ineffective and toothless regulator.

hazel, London, England

This is part of the drive to show that we are going green and the government has done well so far by exercising a complete loss of the brain We need electricity. Britain's reliance on electricity from the continent will be total through the effective loss of control by this government

Philip Hodges, Nottingham, Notts

This smacks of what Naomi Klein might describe as Disaster Capitalism, or taking market advantage of the situation.

When energy suppliers refuse to reveal the reasons for the cuts because disclosure could affect the wholesale price, presumably once the price has increased the power will return.

ptah, Milton Keynes, UK

Now is the time to build some reliable nuclear stations and stop all this tilting at windmills the green lobby have forced upon us.

Phil, Liverpool, UK

Well, if you voted or benefited from Thatchers privatisation of these strategic industries then here is your chicken - too bad you have nothing to cook it with!
What this country has lacked since 1990 is any strategic energy policy that looked beyond the 'dirt cheap today, stuff tomorrow'

Simon , Warwick,

The energy white and green papers released by the government a few years ago, instead of saying "we will ensure that X new power stations are built by the year X", seemed to contain only vague commitments to lowering emissions and changing the energy mix. We will suffer for this negligence.

Ted, London, UK

Hi This is not surprising. After 20 years of privatisation the power companies now know the demand for each and everyday of the year. The larger companies have systematically been allowed to cut the generation margin by closing plant. The market is flawed as NG give warnings and the market reacts.

Derek Whitaker, Bishop Monkton, England

Kerry/Adam - you are right about tidal power being a potential solution. But somebody will oppose that because of the effect on migrating salmon or harbour porpoises. Ditto wind power because of migrating birds, coal because of air polution and nuclear because of radiation/waste. Result? Paralysis

Richard, Bexhill, UK

No conspiracy, just physics. If a power plant trips, the load on the rest increases and the grid frequency drops. Stand-by gas-fired plant spins up quickly to replace lost capacity, but if the grid frequency drops too far other plants will shut down for safety. To prevent this you cut people off.

Simon, London,

Here in Wallasey, we lost power for 20 minutes. It certainly made us aware of our vulnerability today. There is hardly anything that we do in our daily lives that does not require electricity.
Maybe we will self destruct without outside help, if we do not pay more attention to energy issues.

Pat van der Veer, Wallasey, U.K.

Nationalise the energy companies in the national interest. Nobody would object.

DickW, Aberdeenshire,

"More plant will be forced to close because of environmental pressure". People will die if we don't stop sticking up useless windmills and make some serious investment in long-term sustainable energy resources. We need some real science.

Frank Upton, Solihull,

Before advocating more Nuclear Power, which we know Tony Blair wanted, Google for this lot.
3 Mile Island Unit 2
Chernobyl [as though that could ever be forgotten].
Kashiwazaki, Japan
Forsmark, Sweden. [they are phasing out ALL Nuclear Reactors. This particular type of accident could easily happen here].
Our own reactors Sellafield under all it's name changes, should be warning enough. A rose by any other name?
Hinkley anyone? Then the byproduct spent fuel. THORP reprocessing?
Greenpeace have details on these and more. http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/tags/nuclear-accidents
Read and reconsider. PS. I am not a member of Greenpeace just concerned for my grandchildrens' future..

Beryl, Windsor, England

Shades of Enron. I'd like to see the email traffic between the power company managers and the generating stafion managers (or phone records). Creating a price spike is a great way to improve the bottom line -- and maybe enhance one's performance bonuses.

Patrick, Toronto, Canada

Nuclear Power now. And be like the French. EdF's principal shareholder is the French Republic. UK should think similarly. What private company has the nation's best interests at heart. None is the answer!

John, London, UK

Google:
Desertec Project
analysis for parabolic trough plants in Brazil, Greece, Jordan, Morocco, Spain, and US

Phil, Vienna, Austria

This is yet another example of the "Short Termism" displayed by modern politicians: the quick fix seems to be the most popular mode of operation, and appears to satisfy( dare I say fool) most of the electorate. Supply of energy requires a 30 to 40 year planning cycle, even if this increases costs

John Hughes, Clevedon, United Kingdom

Too many people! We're just asking for trouble by cramming this many people on a small island. 62 million people is insane!

Martin, London, ENGLAND

Wholesale electricity prices soared 35 per cent to £95 per megawatt hour, a new record, immediately after the cuts,
need anyone say more!

william thomson, lincoln, u k

Fragile power network or was it a cyber attack on the power network?

Clive, Dartford, Kent

The thought of "power" in the hands of the private sector is anathema - national resources should be managed and owned by Government, which should ensure adequate investment in such resources for the future needs of the country.

Chris Robinson, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

This is what we have to show for 11 unbroken years of Labour government. The present prime minister was responsible for all government spending for 10 of those years; obviously, he did not allocate the necessary funds for power station development. Yet he tells us he is "the best man for the job"!

Tom Welsh, Basingstoke,

Millions of people with their entertainment equipment on standby complaining about the shortage of power.

Malcolm, Wirral, UK

We need to have a local warning system, that people could quickly react to? We've got early warning sirens, could they not be utilised? An intermitent sounding of the sirens in areas at risk of loosing power! Advertised on tv and radio a system to get people to reduce non essential devices.

RayB , Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

I think we should be grateful. I grew up in a country where power supply was extremely infrequent. In the UK we have very stable power supply, water runs through our taps 99.9% of the time and transport sysyems are mostly good. Lets show some appreciation. There is however room for improvement.

Thomas, London, UK

Put what is an essential resource into the private profit making market and you get poor and expensive service. Trains, water, gas and electricity should all be firmly in the public sector. Now even the causes of the problem will not be made public for "commercial reasons"

mike gee, bournemouth, uk

Well it just goes to show that all the wind farms in place must have taken up the slack?(joking)

MARK , kendal, United Kingdom

I thought these sort of power outages only happened in 3rd World Countries.
Sorry, WE are a 3rd World banana republic!!!
Prepare for the worst, the 20% reserve is no more until this government can come up with policies that they can implement immediately for sustained power.

Louis Blanc, Liverpool, UK

The Government is spending our money on short term items such as the prolonged war instead of our nations energy resources, they want people to cut down the use so they don't use our money on new power stations.
Every home can solar water heating, solar electricity, its free and creates new jobs.

Peter, Hastings, UK

Perhaps now some of the "Not-In-My-Backyard" moaners will stop complaining about putting up wind farms, so we can move forward in some way. Perhaps they may now start to re-think where their power is going to come from before the lights go out. Get building nuclear too.

Richard Bradley, Northampton, uk

WHY did this happen?? no explanation

Zylon, northampton, uk

Privatisation hasnt worked because the government interfers. Nobody is willing to put up the money for a new plant in case the government turns round and shuts it on green issues.
No attack, the system simply cannot cope with tyhe demands piled on it anymore.

Dominic, Manchester, England

Joyce from Sacramento & Aaron Turner. Seems very likely. When is this government going to get a grip and stop speculators crippling our economy?
On top of which, only 6 years ago power stations were being mothballed deliberately so the power companies could restrict supply and charge more. Rip-off

Giles, Edinburgh, UK

Kerry - Wind power is too unreliable to be a sensible alternative; it is also difficult and expensive to synchronise with the Grid. Tidal is better, but horribly expensive to build and maintain.

Nuclear Fusion is the holy grail, if only our politicians had the cojones to fund it properly.

Ade, Wallasey, UK

Underlines how foolish it was to have finite resources in the hands of a private industry.
Gas supplies have been squandered by using it for power stations - all to swell the coffers of private companies.
Water, Gas,Coal, Oil should all be state controlled, if only in part.

Mike Brandt, london, england

Infrastructure is the real problem here. Aging switchgear which explodes (all too often killing people) regularly, elderly cables, etc. etc. The tools exist to find these problems before they get serious, but there's no incentive to invest.

Ade, Wallasey, UK

The power generating companies have run out of patience with this government because of its consistent failure over 11 years to lay down a coherent policy for energy production, distribution and consumption. This latest outage (however caused) brings home to Brown and his lackeys that they must act.

clive, surrey,

People couldn't make phone calls as mobile phone masts are on the grid, as lots of people have mains powered cordless phones.

Kevin, Kent, UK

Something is very wrong with Britains energy industry. There is little investment in the infrastructure at a time when energy companies are making record profits. The justification made by the companies for high prices is often the need to invest or is it the need for big bonus?

John, Manchester,

Bullseye, Kerry in Colchester. Tidal power is the main answer. With proper funding, and perhaps a partnership between the UK and Ireland, these islands could soon be making all their own electricity, with a surplus to sell to other countries. If this doesn't happen, it'll be our own stupid fault.

Adam, Lancaster, UK

this must be due to foreign owership.once again british goverment's have fallen down be allowing all the utilities
to fall into the hands greedy foreign owneship.
DITCH THE E.U. then perhaps we could see a great improvement the E.U. is britains down fall.

albert drinkwater, luton, great britain

Brian, the UK has the same corrupt policticians as the third world, why not the same standard of energy supply.

Ray Harvey, Hitchin, uk

There's more to this story. What is it?

Successive governments have made no plans to improve infrastructure of any sort and have in fact abrogated responsibility.

However, maintaining the life systems of a nation is the prime function of government. I detect incompetence and corruption.

C Smith, Norwich, UK

Don't worry, be happy - things are only going to get (much) worse in the UK, according to a recent article in the Economist.

But what would you expect if you can build neither nuclear nor coal-fired power stations because of "Green" issues?

Hoisted by your own "carbon footprint", so to speak.

Paul, Munich, Germany

On a sunny and dry day many of my neighours can be see with their tumble driers going! This excessive use by domestic customer may not be the main cause of the issue but educating people as to needless use of appliances must be done.

kerry, Colchester, ESSEX

We live on an island surrounded by tidal water and many parts of our island are lashed by cruel winds - what's wrong with generating electricity from these natural elements and providing suffienct power for all without the legacy of pollution such as is currently being 'dealt with' from nuclear??

kerry, Colchester, ESSEX

"Householders were unable to (...) make phonecalls (...)."

Something needs looking into here. The phone system is supposed to be independent of the electricity supply.

Martin, Caen, France

Britons now realise that although their economy grew substantially in the last 10 years, infrastructure has not improved at all. Just take as an example the London underground, the privatised national rail network and also the power infrastructure. Seriuos government funding is urgently needed.

Heiner, Frankfurt, Germany

Seems theres a serious attack taking place on the UK.
Oil, Electricity. What next ?

Via the greed of its own w@nkers...sorry..meant to say...bankers. And a Prime Minister that is with a smile, happily and purposefully, causing more damage to this country than Hitler ever did.

Dave, Lincoln,

In 2001, California experienced a spate of rolling blackouts exacerbated by energy traders at Enron deliberately attempting to manipulate the price of energy (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron#California.27s_deregulation_and_subsequent_energy_crisis). Is something similar happening here...?

Aaron Turner, Northampton, UK

Deja vu.

Enron did this to California in 2001. Enron took California for an extra 9 billion dollars in over-priced energy before anyone even got wise to how they were holding California's own electricity for ransom. Perhaps the Ken Lay gang all moved to the UK to take over your electricity.

Joyce , Sacramento, California

Deja vu.
Enron did this to California in 2001. Enron took California for an extra 9 billion dollars in over-priced energy before anyone even got wise to how they were holding California's own electricity for ransom. Perhaps the Ken Lay gang all moved to the UK to take over your electricity.

Joyce, Sacramento, California

In 2001, California experienced a spate of rolling blackouts exacerbated by energy traders at Enron deliberately attempting to manipulate the price of energy (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron#California.27s_deregulation_and_subsequent_energy_crisis). Is something similar happening here...?

Aaron Turner, Northampton, UK

The most significant blackout was in news coverage. Nothing on the news last night according to my friend and onthe internet, the incidents were all being treated as "local" as late as 7:30pm with London not mentioned at all. All sorts of different reasons were given for each individual area.

Martin Leyland, Guisborough, England

I also note that the price of electricity rose by 13 per cent, which according to the AEP means "the market is working well". Maybe for them. Possibly they don't want to tell us what happened fully because we might start calling for more regulation or, God forbid, ask for some of our money back.

Martin Leyland, Guisborough, England

A private industry calling upon the government to build new plant - I thought the idea of privatisation was to make the whole thing more efficient and self-sustaining? Shws what a great idea it was to put a strategic resource into the hands of pillagers. Part of Thatcher's legacy.

Bill Q, Derby,

Britain has failed to respond to future problems of energy supply and as a result the most obvious forms of 'reliable' energy, Nuclear Energy, which despite its critics has proven to be safe and reliable (unlike coal which coincidently emits more radiation when burnt). We used to supply France.....

Michael Dyke, Moscow, Russia

"New" Labour's policy of 'spend, spend, spend' on headline-catching gimmickry instead of carrying out the basic, dull old duties of a government has led us to this situation. No money left in the gneral fund to shore up the crumbling eifice.

Micky Gwilliam, London, UK

This amounts to nothing short of complete government ineptitude. South Africa is currently subject to power 'outage' sharing schemes where large swathes of the country are routinely cut off from power. This is a third world example of failure to plan. But Britian? Please get a grip on things.

Mike, Bristol, UK

Deja vu.
Enron did this to California in 2001. Enron took California for an extra 9 Billion dollars in inflated energy costs before Californians even had a hint that Enron was holding our own state's electricity for ransom. Perhaps the Ken Lay gang from Enron moved to the UK to do the same.

Joyce, Sacramento, California , USA

Internet attack... What a joke more like a dithering government that should have adopted Nuclear Power ten years ago, another case of pandering to people who know nothing by this ineffective joke of a government....

Adam Kent, Solihull, UK

It's becoming an even cooler Bittannia! By the way, what happened to "Cool Brittannia?

Geevee, Brixham, Devonshire

Is this the full story? Half a dozen power stations off-line in May in a First World country? The shutdowns point to a potentially catastrophic failure to design, and maintain, a safe and secure generating system: is it ,for example, safe from cyber sabotage? Was such sabotage involved yesterday?

RMK Wheaton, Maidenhead,

The UK is a third world country!!! The pace of its decline has been rapid!

brian Johnson, Oxford, UK

The lack of comment about the cause of this incident indicates Either confusion, incompetence or conspiracy (or possibly a mix of all three). The geographically disparate locations coupled with coincident timing seems to indicate an internet attack, long predicted in the US.

Nick, Clayton, CA