Access to UK energy sites restricted by coronavirus

London — Visitor access to National Grid's UK control rooms has been suspended due to the coronavirus, the power and gas transmission system operator told S&P Global Platts Wednesday.X

EDF Energy has also restricted access to all its generation sites due to the virus, the company told Platts.

"All of our control rooms are secure sites with a wide range of existing resilience and security measures, including restricting visitors, fully operational back-up locations and engineers trained across multiple roles. These measures have now been strengthened further with a complete restriction of any visitor access to our control rooms," a National Grid spokesman said.

National Grid said it was restricting business travel in accordance with World Health Organization advice.

An EDF Energy spokesperson said: "With more cases of coronavirus being reported across the UK, EDF is doing all that it can to prepare for the impacts that spread of the illness will have. At present, there is no impact on our day to day operations but we will continue to monitor the situation."

EDF Energy said it had also restricted access "to all of our sites and are prompting staff to consider just how vital business travel is."

"We also have comprehensive plans to safely maintain operations at all of our power stations. The steps we have taken will minimise risks to employees and are specifically designed to ensure we can safely continue to supply energy to the grid and our millions of customers," the generator said.

On Tuesday, parent company EDF told French state media three workers at separate French nuclear sites -- Cattenom, Belleville and Fessenheim -- had tested positive for the virus. Normal operations were reported at the plants.

At present, 14 of EDF's 57 reactors are offline for maintenance.

On Wednesday, rough seas in the English Channel reduced output at four units at its Penly and Paluel reactor sites for a number of hours, according to EDF's transparency website. French nuclear generation has been at multi-year lows this winter but plentiful alternative generation and slack demand has limited any impact on power prices.