Orsted is to make a voluntary payment to British energy regulator Ofgem in relation to the role played by the 1.2GW Hornsea 1 offshore wind farm during the power system failure that left thousands without electricity on 9 August.
The Danish developer has agreed to pay £4.5m into Ofgem’s redress fund for not remaining connected after a lightning strike that led to Hornsea 1 losing 800MW of load.
German generator RWE has also agreed to pay £4.5m for the same reason relating to the 740MW Little Barford combined-cycle gas turbine plant.
Both Little Barford and Hornsea 1 both stopped generating on 9 August shortly after the lightning strike.
Ofgem said its investigation into the incident found that the combined loss of two large generators, as well as the smaller loss of generation at a local level, together triggered the subsequent disconnection, loss of power and disruption to more than 1m consumers.
Distribution company UKPN will also pay out £1.5m after a technical breach of rules.
“August 9th showed how much disruption and distress is caused to consumers across the UK when this does not happen,” said Ofgem executive director Jonathan Brearley.
“That is why it is right that companies that were unable to keep generating have paid into our consumer redress fund,” he added.
An Orsted spokesman said: “The power outage on 9 August was caused by an extremely rare sequence of events, involving a number of parties, and the issue we experienced at Hornsea 1 was quickly resolved. However, in recognition of our role in the outage, we have offered to make a voluntary contribution to Ofgem’s redress fund.
“We have co-operated with Ofgem throughout their investigations and conducted a thorough internal review of the events in order to prevent a situation like this from happening again.”