Talk of blackouts has echoes of one of the defining features of the 1970s - when the lights really did go out.
From 1972, the then Tory Prime Minister Edward Heath became locked in political battle with the immensely powerful and militant National Union of Mineworkers.
Unlike in the early 1970s, the UK is now far less dependent on domestic coal and has a much more diverse supply of energy.
Crisis struck when coal miners voted to strike over wages for six weeks between January and February 1972.
It was the first time miners had walked away from work since 1926.
An industrial dispute saw miners picket power stations in an effort to restrict coal supply.
With fuel supplies dwindling, the government declared a state of emergency. This included limiting electricity to homes and businesses through rota disconnections. Some were without power for up to nine hours a day.
The mass blackouts forces many businesses to close.
Whilst that strike came to an end with the Government's capitulation and a pay rise for miners, the following year saw further unrest when ministers capped public sector wages amid an inflation crisis – as the NUM demanded a further pay rise of 35%.
Although another strike was initially avoided, miners did vote to ban overtime, leading to the halving of coal production.
This led to the imposition of the three-day week of 1974, introduced in response to energy shortages and played a pivotal role in unseating the British government.
Rationing of electricity began on January 1 and lasted until March as Edward Heath's government attempted to preerve dwindling fuel supplies.
The enforced shorter working week, brought in by Heath's Conservative government, saw businesses and public services being limited to three consecutive days of power each week.
Essential services – such as hospitals and supermarkets – continued, but pubs and restaurants were closed on the quiet days, and television channels, essentially the BBC and ITV were barred from broadcasting past 10.30pm.
Ordinary Britons were ordered to limit heating to one room and to keep non-essential lights switched off.
Whe pubs were open, people were forced to drink by candlelight, whilst shop workers around the country used head torches to keep trading.
The traditional Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree, which usually shone throughout December, was switched off until Christmas Day itself. Even the Cabinet met in Downing Street by candlelight.
“People worked by candlelight and torchlight, wrapped themselves in blankets and duvets to keep warm and boiled water to wash in,” the HistoryHit website notes.
The three-day week was symptom of one of the great post-war crises in Britain that culminated in the infamous Winter of Discontent between November 1978 and February 1979 where industrial action left mountains of rubbish piled up in the streets while bodies went unburied.
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