Britons have been told again that they might face blackouts during January and February next year if the weather turns "really cold".
National Grid boss John Pettigrew told a conference yesterday that there was a prospect of power outages between 4pm-7pm on weekdays if there is a cold snap in January and February and gas imports are disrupted.
Pettigrew's comments, at the Financial Times's Energy Transition Summit, echoed a warning by National Grid earlier this month that some areas faced three-hour blackouts in the "unlikely" event of gas supplies not being sufficient to maintain generation capacity.
Britain gets 40% of its electricity from gas-fired power stations with the majority of home boilers also gas-fired.
Europe is being affected by gas shortages due to the Ukraine war and Russia cutting off supplies.
While the UK does not source gas directly from Russia supplies from places such as Norway, where it does, are being diverted to the EU making availability scarce and pushing up prices everywhere.
Coal-fired power stations are already being brought out of retirement along with mothballed gas storage facilities to build up a contingency while companies on interruptible power contracts have been warned they might be triggered to help meet peak demand over the winter.
Households, meanwhile, are slashing their discretionary spending to pay for their energy bills according to research released today.
A survey from Barclaycard found just over half (53%) of respondents said they are going out less, cutting spending on drinking in pubs, bars and nightclubs and buying fewer new clothes and accessories.
People intend to spend more evenings at home over the coming months, the survey reported, while more will be making packed lunches for work and spending less on coffee and other treats.