Power cut probe

SCOTTISH & Southern Energy are investigating the cause of a power cut that affected the whole of Shetland on Tuesday night.

All of SSE’s 13,000 Shetland customers lost power around 9pm on Tuesday, but some properties will barely have noticed.

An SSE spokesman said that a fault at Lerwick power station switched off electricity throughout Shetland, but within 10 seconds the Sullom Voe oil terminal power station was feeding electricity to 3,000 customers in the north of the isles.

Meanwhile the other 10,000 customers had to wait 22 minutes for the power to come back on.

The spokesman said it took that long for the staff at the power station to carry out safety checks, switch through all the power feeds and allow the system to restabilise.

He added that an investigation was still trying to find out what had caused the fault in the first place, which happened on a calm and pleasant summer’s evening.