While we're all used to the sight of traditional power lines, pylons and poles, not so many of us have seen the flipside of the electricity network, the underground cables which play such a vital role in keeping the power flowing to our homes, businesses, hospitals and care facilities.
Mikey Cummings has been a cable jointer with Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks for the past 12 years and, along with his colleagues in the company's South Caledonia region, works on underground electricity cables from Dundee, throughout Angus all the way up to southern Aberdeenshire.
Pre-lockdown, Mikey was working on new connections, enabling customers large and small to join the electricity network safely and securely. While SSEN's Connections teams are still working during the pandemic, the focus at the moment is on 'critical national infrastructure' sites, such as hospitals, telecoms sites or any other location required to maintain essential public services or support the coronavirus response.
With this focus on critical work, Mikey is currently helping to make sure that the network is in good shape ahead of the coming winter by replacing old cables and their joints with the latest versions, and also working as part of the teams that respond to faults on the underground network during power cuts.
Throughout all of this, SSEN's commitment to safety remains the same, and in addition to the usual pre-work risk assessments and PPE, Mikey explains how the company has added extra coronavirus measures:
"Ever since I joined SSEN as an apprentice, I've been really impressed with the company's focus on keeping us all safe, and even before the official lockdown was announced, we'd introduced additional ways of keeping ourselves and our customers safe. Things such as regularly wiping down our tools and PPE, wrapping up any gloves or facemasks in 'double-bags' ready for safe disposal at the depot and, of course, social distancing when at work, all of these make me feel safer and shows that the company is still putting safety first."
As well as the extra hygiene measures SSEN has introduced, Mikey and his colleagues are all currently based at home rather than the normal Dundee depot, and for planned work everyone is working under the new 'one person, one vehicle' initiative to further help social distancing amongst staff.
The work that Mikey and his colleagues are doing is classed as High Priority by the regulator, Ofgem, and Mikey is proud to be helping keep the power flowing at such a challenging time.
He said:
"The day after lockdown was announced by the Prime Minister, I was part of a team working to repair a cable in Dundee, and I remember it felt odd to begin with as there was hardly anyone else out and about. But when someone passed us, you could just sense that they knew it was important work that we were doing, and that felt good, knowing that we're part of a company that's helping to keep electricity flowing at such an important time."