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Major power cut across the Western Isles 27/7/10
Every home and business in the Western Isles was left without mains electricity for up to two and a half hours this morning.
People heading for work had to go without a cup of coffee while throngs of tourists in B&B’s missed having bacon and eggs for breakfast.
Scottish and Southern Energy engineers are investigating the technical cause of the major power cut which affected nearly 17,000 homes and business premises from 7.30am across the island chain.
It took around two and a half hours before Scottish and Southern Energy got the supply restored back to normal.
The fault lay with a transformer on the national grid at Waternish on Skye. The power
network to the Hebrides splits into two sub-
Engineers fired up four diesel power stations on the islands to get supply back on line at different stages during the morning.
Some 7,000 properties were still without electricity at 10am.
A SSE spokesman said: “Everyone was restored by 10.30am. Generators at Lochcarnan, Barra. Arnish and Battery Point were started up. Our priority is to get customers’ supply restored quickly.”