It is a bit suspicious. Could hackers cause this sort of thing, or would it have to be physical sabotage?
1. Drone attack? Could be so easy to do, Drone technology is just about to literally explode. How and why we haven't been terrorised already with exploding drones is a modern day miracle, i am sure you are aware of the amount going 'bang' every day in Ukraine, the software development alongside this is off the scale on both sides, to the point they will be almost 100% autonomous shortly, with a mixture of AI and other software advances controlling them. No jamming etc target aquired by facial recognition or building/anpr etc and off you go. Fire n forget. I really do fear these things, they are deeply unpleasant if not controlled right now.
One drone will be deployed to float around identifying targets for up to hours at a time, the rest will be attack drones with much shorter lifespan, i see they have now developed dormant attack drones, that power done to minimal draw until their target is available, then relaunch and attack.
2. Hackers no, unless some AI reverse polarity engineered event hacked in a way to cause the substation to melt down i doubt. Possibly just the sweese cheese effect coming into action, but of all the substations in the uk, wow what a coincidence. Didn't a building catch fire in london not long ago a storage depot?
3. Sabotage by a terrorist. Possibly
4. Accidental, possibly? See below Walthamstow was intentional.
Here are a few notable incidents from recent years:
Barking, July 2021: Substation fire caused by an equipment fault — 40,000 homes lost power.
Poplar, August 2021: Fire at an electrical substation disrupted traffic signals and local power supply.
Walthamstow, October 2022: Arson suspected — man charged with criminal damage after a substation was set on fire.
Lancashire, December 2023: Smaller scale, but still affected several thousand homes.
