Lightning continues to cause disruption to the electricity network in the Western
Isles and north west Scotland for the second day running.
Nearly 30,000 customers
have been without supply at some point today due to damage done to the network by
lightning strikes.
The biggest fault affected 27,000 customers in the Western Isles and Skye caused
by a lightning strike on the high voltage transmission network. Power was restored
in around two hours.
This evening around 1300 customers are without power in the
Western Isles, part of Argyll and Orkney.
Hydro engineers have worked on around 80 high voltage faults today after repairing
around 120 faults yesterday.
SSE have engineers at every fault and are working hard to ensure that supplies are restored tonight to as many customers as possible.
More lightning and high winds are forecast for tomorrow and there is likely to be more disruption to the network as a result.
A SSE spokesperson said: “We’d like to apologise to those customers who have been
off supply today. We understand how inconvenient it is to be without electricity.
“We’d also like to thank them for the patience and understanding they have shown
us over the last two days while our engineers have worked hard to repair faults and
restore supplies. We greatly appreciate their continued support.”
Lightning strikes knocks out power supplies
11 December 2014