Blackout Britain: UK faces power outages if winter is long and cold, warns National Grid

The margin between the amount of electricity generated and peak demand is expected to be just 4.1 per cent - the smallest gap in seven years.

Bad weather of the kind seen once every 20 years could see the margin narrow to just 2.8 per cent, the report found, resulting in the grid failing to meet its "basic reserve requirement" of spare capacity needed to run the system.

If this happened, the grid would be forced to adopt contingencies such as paying factories to shut down and supplying reserves from mothballed power stations .... http://www.express.co.uk