Science You Fools

Yesterday various reports into grid security and NESO governance around 23 June were published @neso_energy and @mgshanks immediately seized on the statement by Eversheds that its "investigation has not substantiated any of the allegations”. Shanks said there was "no evidence" to support the allegations which is plainly not what Eversheds said nor what the report contains At every turn, Eversheds took the most generous interpretation possible to NESO's benefit. Areas of concern were repeatedly identified and not followed up with rigour. A lack of evidence was taken as evidence to the contrary despite obvious limitations to the investigation process in terms of independence (Eversheds was appointed by NESO) and anonymity (some witnesses eg the Power System Manager would be easily identifiable to NESO staff and senior execs, potentially limiting what they would be willing to say) Eversheds identified that important logs were not kept in the week of 22 June, despite engineers having identified ahead of time that risks would be elevated. Yet they did not explore why, or check that the reports had not been either deleted or simply withheld from them They identified the possibility of mobile phones being used to pass on undue influence from the Corporate Affairs team but only checked the phone records of the PSM, not their line manager or other more senior people - yet elsewhere it mentions a manager coming to the control room when a demand control warning was being considered and when they left it was no longer being considered - a senior manager could speak by phone or in person to Corporate Affairs and pass on the concerns in person to the PSM - there is no evidence Eversheds considered this despite identifying the pieces of the puzzle Eversheds identified significant weaknesses in record-keeping, a culture of reputational sensitivity, concerns that staff were not listened to by senior management, and uncertainty about whether the correct operational escalation procedures had been followed on 23 June It also recorded that five network constraints had been breached with no available pre- or post-action mitigation options, with confusion about whether the largest loss was covered, and even what the impact of a single fault would have been NESO admitted in its interim report to Ofgem that 5 grid constraints were breached despite having strongly suggested to the press that they had not It also said that on 23 June it had taken “all available and commercially accessible” balancing actions while frequency remained significantly below its normal operating range despite automatic frequency response services responding to prevent further falls So what reserve was left, and why was it not deployed? If reserves were not available or commercially accessible then they would be useless – did NESO retain enough usable reserve to cover the largest loss or not? Anyone that thinks these reports exonerate NESO and that concerns over grid security can be dismissed is dreaming. The reports show there is no room for complacency. In my blog I list about 20 risks to grid security which ought to give readers an idea of the range of threats it faces The question is whether anything will be done about it. @ofgem still expects NESO to mark its own homework, something other regulators of safety critical systems do not do If the conclusion when the final reports come in is that the grid wasn't secure then there will be serious questions for both Ofgem and NESO to answer about the self-reporting process because the only reason the issues surrounding 23 June have been investigated at all was because @ClaireCoutinho stood up in Parliament TWICE and sounded the alarm (with due credit to the whistleblower who approached her in the first place) #EnergySecurity @Miatsf @AndrewBowie_MP @HarrietCross_MP @ColinMoynihanUK @drlukeevans @Ashley7Fox @TiceRichard @cmackinlay @DavidGHFrost @mattwridley @Iromg @AllisonPearson @MerrynSW @afneil @EdConwaySky @mattotele @Jonathan__Leake @CitySamuel @energygovuk watt-logic.com/2026/10/20/ne…