SSEN has said good progress is being made restoring power in North of Scotland
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Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) remains at Red Alert status for the north of Scotland as its teams continue to respond to the significant damage caused to network infrastructure as a result of storms Malik and Corrie.
Overnight, SSEN said its teams had made good progress in restoring power to an additional 1,100 customers who were off supply as a result of Saturday’s extreme weather.
Efforts are now underway to assess the damage caused by Storm Corrie which brought extreme wind gusts of over 90mph across the region.
This included a wind gust of 92mph at Inverbervie, Aberdeenshire, higher than both Storm Arwen or Malik.
SSEN teams have been out since first light to assess damage and restore power as quickly as possible, where it is safe to do so.
As of 10am this morning, 40,000 homes are without power across the north of Scotland as a result of the two storms, which split out as below:
Storm Malik
Power has been successfully restored to around 68,000 customers affected by Storm Malik, with around 7,000 customers remaining off supply, mainly in pockets across Aberdeenshire, following Saturday’s extreme weather.
SSEN’s teams are prioritising the restoration of these customers and expect the vast majority to be restored today with full restoration on Tuesday evening.
Storm Corrie
Early assessments show around 38,000 customers have been affected by Storm Corrie overnight. Around 4000 of these customers have had their supply restored, with around 33,000 customers currently without power.
Of these, around 19,000 relate to two major faults affecting customers in the Stonehaven area (13,000) and Deeside (6,000) which are being worked on and are expected to be restored later today.
Restoration efforts from Storm Corrie will continue into Tuesday with the possibility that for small clusters of customers this may extend into Wednesday, subject to today’s damage assessment.
To help customers make informed choices and potentially alternative arrangements where possible, many faults currently have an estimated restoration time of Tuesday night.
SSEN is continuing to update this information for individual faults as its field teams are able to provide a more specific restoration estimate.
Customers will be notified proactively as estimated restoration times for their specific fault are updated.
It appears that the worst of the power supply issues might be over in the strath as SSEN is no longer deploying welfare facilities locally.
Richard Gough, Director of Distribution System Operations at SSEN, said: “Our teams have continued to make strong progress restoring power to customers impacted by the extreme weather from Storm Malik, with over 90 per cent of those customers restored.
“Whilst our teams are making every effort to restore customers as soon as possible, the cumulative impact of Storms Malik and Corrie has compounded the restoration challenge.
"As a result, we are advising customers that while expected restoration of customer supplies from Storm Malik remains Tuesday evening, restoration times for some of those impacted by Storm Corrie may now extend to Wednesday.
“We would like to apologise to all customers affected and would like to reassure them that all available resources have been deployed to support with restoration efforts and our teams are doing all they can to restore power as quickly as possible, where it is safe to do so.
“We continue to proactively contact customers on our Priority Services Register to offer extra support where required and work with local resilience partners to coordinate welfare provisions.
"I’d encourage any customer concerned to give our dedicated teams a call on 105, where we can provide additional support and guidance.”
The Strathy has contacted SSEN to find out which areas in Badenoch and Strathspey are still without power and when the repairs will be carried out.
Is your home community without power? Let us know at editorial@sbherald.co.uk and we can provide an update for our readers.
