People really need to get some perspective on this.
The Variable Rota Disconnection Plan (VRDP) looks like it's been in existence since 2013. It's not new at all. I think this of one of the biggest things to keep in mind.
Then the most likely scenario is that if we do have blackouts, they will be low level and short lived rather than prolonged - so a week, maybe two tops.
If we are looking at a longer time scale, then that's either looking like a failure of crisis management from when we hit crisis point or we've had some sort of critical infrastructure failure. And that begs much bigger questions about political failure and management - I don't think we are looking at this as the most probable situation, though its growing year on year as a risk.
The former scenario, would probably include significant calls for non mandatory voluntary cuts to electricity use and perhaps things like council led reduced street lighting in the run up to actual blackouts, because there would be some sort of projection of how things we looking for the weeks ahead. They won't let us run straight into blackouts without warning signs if they see the risk rising, unless it's a critical infrastructure failure led event.
As it stands the period there are fears about is roughly 1st December to mid April.
So I think if we have a very cold snap early on (what happens in Europe is also relevant here, but we aren't as exposed as other countries), that will raise fears about problems further down the line.
If its more mild, that perhaps will alleviate the fear and there will be rising optimism that we can ride it out until the spring.
I think we will be watching the weather very intently over the coming weeks and months.
At present the long range forecast for the UK until the 18th is for mild weather and mild nights (comparatively for the season). The forecast from the 19th to 3rd December, is looking more like seasonal average at present but obviously long range forecasts aren't the most reliable.
However this is an La Nina year which is causing concern though, as they usually bring an earlier cold period, and I think that's where a lot of concern is coming from atm.
Overall 3hrs is a relatively short period and it does mean that even in cold weather, you can make sure your house is prepared to cover the gap. You won't go from warm to freezing in 3hrs even in a drafty house. Most of the groups mean that you will be in bed for at least one of your outages meaning you only have to deal with 1 or 2 outages during working hours in a week (and many people will be in work during the daytime anyway - it's home workers who will have more issues. In theory many will have opportunity to contingency plan to be in another location in this scenario though.) Stuff like refridgation or freezing will be OK for 3 hours as long as you aren't sticking your head in the door every 5 mins as appliances have sufficient insulation for that long.
So realistically even if we do have outages they are likely to be an inconvenience that can be navigated rather a disaster. If you can't manage and plan a cold meal for one evening (or takeaway if you can afford) you really need a word with yourself as that's actually the day to day reality of many facing fuel poverty.
The people who are vulnerable to this are those with medical reliance on electronic equipment or the elderly from falls. Reasonably the former should have provisions in place for sudden power ages anyway (I believe its possible to apply for vulnerable status in this scenario and people are being encouraged to do so). The latter I think are the group that I worry about most tbh. Them and the Darwiners who insist on using camp stoves they don't know how to use, especially indoors, but you can't plan for idiocy anyway.
Geninuely I do think people are whipping themselves up into much more of a frenzy than they need to because they aren't thinking rationally and looking at the actual problem and how to deal with it. They are immediately jumping to the conclusion that it's going to be long power cuts, daily, for weeks on end. That doesn't reflect reality.
It is possible that something might really go amiss, but that's still an outlier and the concern in that situation is it would be harder to fix than previous years, which is the other side of the coin in terms of why they are taking it more seriously this year than previous. It doesn't mean they think it will, nor is it necessarily the area where they have the most concern.