The fire that shut down London’s Heathrow Airport earlier this year should be seen as a stark warning for every industrial operator still overlooking electrical asset health, engineers are warning.
Speaking at the First Friday media briefing, Nathan Ghundoo, Director and Co-Founder of energy intelligence firm Acteniq, said that increasingly complex electrical systems in major industrial and infrastructure assets — combined with an overloaded national grid — make it critical for engineers to modernise monitoring and maintenance practices.
An official report found that the March incident, which stranded thousands of passengers and cost airlines tens of millions of pounds, was triggered by a failure to maintain an electricity substation. For Ghundoo, the event highlights a systemic weakness across the UK’s industrial landscape.
“It’s a symptom of a neglected infrastructure culture,” he said. “Electrical assets are the beating heart of our economy, yet we often maintain them reactively, not proactively. Monitoring, data visibility, and early intervention are still treated as optional — until something fails.”
Acteniq helps industrial facilities use real-time data to improve asset performance and energy efficiency. Ghundoo argues that the Heathrow event illustrates how outdated maintenance practices persist even as technology becomes cheaper and more accessible.
“We can now track equipment performance, predict failures, and intervene early with affordable sensors and wireless systems,” he said. “But too many organisations are still managing their assets like it’s 2010. The technology is ready — what’s missing is adoption.”
Acteniq focuses on three core pillars of electrical health: condition monitoring, partial discharge detection in high-voltage systems, and temperature and humidity tracking within critical enclosures. Together, these deliver a clear picture of an asset’s condition and risk of failure.
According to Ghundoo, one of the biggest barriers to progress is a shortage of in-house expertise. “We see two kinds of organisation,” he said. “Those with skilled internal teams that push beyond published standards, and everyone else — including some major brands — who simply don’t have the resources anymore to drive these projects.”
He also pointed to a cultural lag in the industrial sector. “Predictive maintenance and power quality monitoring deliver fast ROI, but they’re still seen as discretionary spend. We’ve adopted AI in our personal lives without hesitation, yet we’re reluctant to apply the same intelligence to the assets that keep factories running.”
Acteniq’s analysis suggests that around 30% of energy procured by industrial facilities is wasted before it delivers productive value — lost through poor power quality, inefficiencies, or unmonitored processes. The company promotes a framework called WAGES+ (Water, Air, Gas, Electricity, Steam, plus contextual intelligence) to help sites interpret operational data more effectively.
“The barriers have fallen dramatically,” said Ghundoo. “You can start small — a few wireless sensors, a dashboard, a simple AI layer — and reinvest the savings. It’s about building momentum, not waiting for the perfect project.”
He believes the Heathrow incident underscores the need for closer collaboration between energy, engineering, and maintenance teams. “When those groups work together, you get resilience, safety, and efficiency,” he said. “When they don’t, small faults turn into major failures. The data is already there — it just needs to be used.”
