THE swift response of a North-East firm helped to restore the UK's power supply last week.

Sembcorp’s fleet of rapid response generating units swung into action within seconds to help restore balance to the UK power system following last week’s emergency on the national grid.

The company was able to make more than 600 MW of power available to the grid – the equivalent of electrical requirements of more than 750,000 households – after power cuts led to chaos on the railways and in homes across Britain.

National Grid described it as an 'incredibly rare event', and a safety feature had protected the network from further failure.

Sembcorp operates a range of fast-ramping, gas fired, flexible generating power units from more than 40 sites across England and Wales. The majority of the capacity supplied came from these units, with the energy from waste facility on Teesside also exporting to the Grid to meet the national need.

Nomi Ahmad, head of Sembcorp UK (Energy) said: “We were delighted to be able to help in response to the national need.

“This event goes to show that the UK power system has to be flexible enough to be prepared for all eventualities and with battery power soon to be added to our portfolio we are in a great position to provide additional capacity."