Great chance for 800 000 people to test how prepared they are for short term problems (short term here = up to a week).
I guess most will fail the test going on reports of last minute panic buying.
Where I am the electricity supply has got better over the years, and now the main cables are all buried. There was a 15% rise in transmission costs, followed by annually rises which were smaller but still above the inflation rate.
It was a power cut, soon after we came here, that persuaded my wife to allow me to buy a wood burning stove for the kitchen. Before that she was opposing it by insisting that there only be one stove unit in the kitchen (ie if we had a wood burning one I would have to remove the electric stove
). But one morning without a hot pot of tea was enough to convince her of the need for a wood burning backup system. We use the stove more for heating than for cooking, but it is reassuring that we could cook our meals for as long as we have food.
In the case of power cuts we also loose internet - the transmission masts, in this rural area, only have around 30 minutes worth of battery backup.