Electricity system amber alert issued this morning

A warning of a shortfall of power that could lead to blackouts has been made as unscheduled outages at two stations, low winds and the retirement of peat power stations threaten supply

In the past 15 months the Single Electricity Market Operator has issued seven system alerts to warn of capacity shortages on the electricity grid, compared with just 11 alerts over the previous 10 years. Picture: Getty

Ireland has been issued an electricity system amber alert, warning of a shortfall in electricity generation that could lead to blackouts.

At 9.10 on Monday morning, the Single Electricity Market Operator (Semo) issued a system alert, also known as an amber alert, warning that “due to a generation shortfall in Ireland”, electricity margins would be extremely tight until further notice. All available generators will be asked to make their power assets available, while demand response ...