In my three years covering the energy brief, I have never seen anything like this.
I first raised concerns put to me by whistleblowers within our grid operator, NESO, in the House of Commons on 7 July.
The main allegation is that our grid is not being run securely, and specifically that the rules put in place to prevent blackouts were breached on 23 June, when a heatwave put strain on our electricity supply.
Since then, we have seen a conveyor belt of dismissals, denials, and downright lies from NESO and Ministers.
The problem? Time and again, the whistleblowers keep being proved right.
At first NESO denied that rules were breached on 23 June, telling staff and the press that the allegations were “false”.
Ministers Ed Miliband and Michael Shanks said I was “scaremongering”, and Shanks told the House categorically that “at no point did we come close to breaching” reserve standards.
However, leaked internal documents have since shown that NESO's initial view was that they did breach reserve standards, and that “system security was compromised”.
NESO has confirmed these documents are genuine and has provided no evidence to contradict them.
Strike one.
Senior management also criticised the whistleblowers internally, saying on an all-staff call that they had “let them down”.
They denied this was said, only for a leaked recording to prove that it had been.
Strike two.
Then Ministers and NESO management insisted an 'independent' investigation would take place, only for it again to become clear that this was not true.
Ministers and Ofgem had left NESO to mark their own homework. Engineers were told that if they wanted to contribute, they had to identify themselves to the very NESO managers whose necks would be on the line if the inquiry found them to be at fault.
Strike three.
After my repeated complaints, some improvements have been made to the investigation. But there is still no route for control room operators to raise concerns about grid security without going through NESO managers.
Miliband was completely absent during this scandal, too busy trying – and failing – to become Chancellor.
His Ministers have been firmly on the side of NESO management despite their repeated poor behaviour.
Whatever your view on renewables, it is clear that the more wind and solar we pile onto our grid, the less engineers can perform the delicate balancing act needed to keep the lights on.
You need to have a lot of back-up power on standby in case the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine.
And if the wind blows or sun shines too much, you need to pay to switch things off.
Balancing costs us £1.5bn per year now, but up to £10bn by 2030 - all paid through your bills.
These 'hidden costs' triggered my battle to get the energy department to do a true costing of renewables. We have to look at their full system costs, not just their cost when the wind is blowing the right amount.
Sadly, one of Ed Miliband’s first acts was to cancel that work and ask NESO to take it on instead.
They delivered one of the most discredited reports I have ever seen, showing through shameless statistical contortions that Labour's dash to Clean Power 2030 was, conveniently, both achievable and consumer-friendly.
As the sole shareholder of NESO, only the Secretary of State can hold them to account.
The NESO leadership’s craven support for his plans, worked out behind the scenes with his political advisers, shows they had already given up on the standards of impartiality and integrity required from our independent public bodies.
When public bodies face no accountability, the British public will always lose.
The fact that things have got so bad for expert engineers within our control room that they are talking to an Opposition politician and the press at huge personal risk is shameful.
The Ministers dismissing their concerns do these courageous individuals a huge disservice.
We should be applauding them, not denigrating them.
I will not stop until they are heard.
Me for The Telegraph
