SSEN investigating after three major power outages in three months
SSEN DISTRIBUTION has pledged to continue its investigations after Shetland experienced a third major power outage in three months.
Large parts of Shetland lost power on Sunday afternoon at around 1.20pm, with some people only off momentarily and others without electricity for up to 30 minutes. Some people also reported losing mobile network coverage for a short period.
The outage severely affected internet systems at the Tesco supermarket in Lerwick, resulting in its closure for a full day. After closing at around 3pm on Sunday, it did not re-open until around the same time on Monday afternoon.
SSEN did not provide a figure for how many homes were affected in the latest power cut when asked.
Sunday’s outage came exactly two weeks after another mass outage led to a major incident being declared at the Gilbert Bain Hospital in Lerwick.
In that incident, which occurred at around 3am, both power and network outages were reported across Shetland.
Neither of the two latest incidents have occurred during periods of stormy weather, something traditionally associated with causing power outages.
SSEN Distribution apologised for the disruption on 24 May and said a localised fault had occurred on the network in mainland Shetland.
This week, SSEN Distribution apologised again for the latest outage on Sunday.
The energy giant said in late May it had launched a full investigation into that outage, and this week said it was continuing to investigate.
“Any learnings from this weekend will be factored into that process,” a company spokesperson said.
“We’d like to thank our customers for their patience and understanding.”
The frequency of mass power cuts in recent months has caused concern locally, with another major outage also reported in March.
Around 4,200 homes lost power on 26 March across the North Mainland and North Isles at around 7.50pm, before being restored around 30 minutes later.
Lerwick Community Council last week said it would write to regulator Ofcom to raise concerns about the telecommunications outage on 24 May.
Chairman Jim Anderson said they would be writing a “letter of concern” to Ofcom about how the incident was allowed to happen.
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