Geese hitting power line may have caused major outage
GEESE striking an overhead power line may have been responsible for 3,500 homes losing power in Shetland this morning (Tuesday).
A large number of homes across the isles lost power at around 9.30am this morning, with SSE saying that parts of Scalloway and the South Mainland were affected.
A fault on the overhead power network was blamed for the outage, which SSE said was unrelated to previous outages across Shetland this year.
Power was restored quickly to the affected properties, with most homes only without power for around 30 minutes.
SSE is carrying out patrols of its overhead network to identify the cause of the fault, but initial reports have shown it may have been caused by geese striking the overhead lines.
The company aims to mitigate against birds hitting energy infrastructure by installing bird diverters and other deterrents, but said there were occasions when it did still happen.
A spokesperson for SSE said: “We’d like to thank our customers across the south end of Shetland for their patience this morning, as our engineers worked hard to restore supplies following a fault on our overhead network.
“If a fault occurs, our priority is to restore supplies as safely and as quickly as possible and on this occasion all power was back on in around 30 minutes.”
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