News / SSEN engineers re-connect 900 homes leaving 700 without power for a fifth night
SCOTTISH and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) Distribution has said they are confident that “the vast majority, is not all, homes” will be reconnected to the electricity supply by Sunday.
Just over 700 properties remain without power on Friday night after significant progress has been made by the 150-strong crew of hydro men.
Heavy snow fall of wet snow followed by icing on Monday afternoon devastated Shetland’s overhead electricity network leaving thousands of households and businesses without power.
SSEN said their teams had surpassed expectations on Friday after they had managed to re-connect more homes than initially expected.
Supplies to around 900 households in Sandness, Hillswick, Papa Stour and Wester Skeld were restored on Friday, while 700 properties remain without power in parts of Voe, Brae and West of Mainland Shetland.
Helicopters have been patrolling the West Mainland area, pinpointing key sections of damage to help our teams to target their efforts and get homes reconnected quicker than expected in some areas.
Additional power line crews are travelling through the night to join the teams on the ground in a bid to accelerate the timescale.
An updated list of locations, customer numbers connected to each circuit and the final estimated times of restoration (ETR) can be seen below.
Head of Region at SSEN Distribution Mark Macdonald said: “Today has been about making significant progress as heavy snowfall continued, reconnecting towns and villages area-by-area as we continue to repair, rebuild and restore the local electricity network ahead of our forecasts.
“Our 150-strong team of engineers and contract partners will continue to work this evening and be joined at first light tomorrow by more crews, with everyone focused on working together to restore power as quickly as we can.
“Thanks to the huge effort today, we’re confident we’ll reconnect the vast majority, if not all, homes by Sunday, with a chance some small clusters will be restored on Monday.”
Macdonald said his teams were aware of the weather warnings issued by the Met Office.
He also said that some properties that have had their power restored may be temporarily disconnected for a short period of time as engineers progress with the restoration plan and connect more properties to the network.
“We’ll communicate directly with all customers due to be impacted by temporary disconnections and will signpost to local welfare provisions for this period,” he said.
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