Potential energy blackouts affecting London’s 1.9 million ‘home working’ population would mean disrupted broadband connection, hampering its ability to complete the simplest of tasks – but the UK’s leading broadband news and analysis site, thinkbroadband.com, has issued guidance on how to keep your broadband running during a blackout, but warned people to be careful not to damage their broadband router in the process.

According to the latest *ONS Survey, over a third of London’s workforce (37%) are based from home, and the threat of an energy blackout was put into focus with the announcement on the 23 January 2023 that, *up to a million households in England, Scotland and Wales will be paid to use less electricity as part of a scheme to avoid blackouts.

National Grid’s ‘Demand Flexibility Service’ has already been in operation between 16:30 and 18:00 GMT (wc 23 January) and those who have signed up will get discounts on their bills if they do things like delay using their oven. This comes on the back of a warning last November from the Head of the National Grid, John Pettigrew, who *warned British households that blackouts may be imposed between 4pm and 7pm in “really, really cold” winter weekdays if Europe cuts gas exports. Mr Pettigrew said January and February are the months when blackouts are most likely, particularly in a cold snap. He said the situation could be even worse if wind speeds happen to be low, cutting the effectiveness of power turbines while energy imports were restricted.

In response to the power blackout concerns, Sebastien Lahtinen, co-founder of thinkbroadband.com has advised consumers, particularly those who work from home to consider taking precautions. He says: “If the UK experiences power blackouts this will naturally cause huge problems for people. The public may think they can just use their mobile phone to get around the problem, however, mobile networks will be under a much higher load as everyone is going to be using them. …/
“Therefore, if you’re looking to do something more than read e-mails, having your home broadband up will be useful, as well as keeping your home devices online, such as Ring doorbells and smart locks.

“Our research at thinkbroadband.com has discerned a simple solution that works for most home broadband routers and most households already have all but one of the parts. If you already have a USB power bank to charge your phone, all you might need is a £10 adaptor/cable in many cases. Connect your adaptor to a USB power bank and to your broadband equipment. Test to see it works and how long it can power it for. Once done, recharge the battery and keep it ready if you need it.

“As broadband routers and related devices are usually low-voltage DC devices powered by an AC adaptor, we can often just connect them to a USB battery, the same kind you use to charge your phone or tablet. However, since most run at 12V, we either need a step-up converter or a USB-C Power Delivery (PD) adaptor that signals to the battery to provide 12V directly, depending on the type of battery you have.

“It is crucial people check what their router requires and buy the right parts – just because it fits (plugs in) does not mean it’s suitable, and putting in too many volts may fry your router permanently if it does not have over-voltage protection. We hope that the plans in place to reduce power consumption at peak times will be sufficient, but if your broadband is critical to your work, it’s certainly worth taking some simple steps to prepare.” concludes Lahtinen.