Homes and businesses on Yell and Unst are seeing the benefits of a recent upgrade to their islands' electricity infrastructure by Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN).
With a wide range of new infrastructure in place between Mid Yell and Gutcher, SSEN engineers are now able to 're-route' supplies to minimise disruption on the rare occasion there is a power cut, and the upgrade also helps reduce the number of customers who need to be temporarily switched off during critical maintenance.
The benefits of the network upgrade project, which has seen 4.5km of new underground cable and nearly 2km of overhead line installed between Camb and Sellafirth on Yell, were seen for the first time earlier this month, when engineers carried out emergency repairs to part of the overhead line in Yell which had been damaged two days earlier by gale force winds.
In the past, if the power had to go off to ensure everyone's safety during the repairs, it would have meant temporarily turning the supplies off to all 796 customers across Unst, Gutcher, Cullivoe and Fetlar.
With the new equipment in place however, engineers were able to keep half of the customers' electricity flowing by re-routing it to different parts of the local network as SSEN teams worked safely on the repairs.
George Priest, SSEN's Operations Manager on Shetland, explains more:
"As well as the installation of new underground cable and overhead wires, the project saw extra 'switching points' and automated equipment installed at key points along the route between Mid Yell and Gutcher.
"The integration of all this new technology makes the network more 'flexible' to those of us behind the scenes, as when we're planning the work we've now got more options of re-routing supplies to different parts of the network, reducing the number of customers that need to go off during critical maintenance wherever possible.
"In this case, the damage by the high winds a couple of days earlier was on the main line that supplies power to North Yell, Fetlar and Unst. By using the newly installed equipment to re-route customers it meant that we were able to keep the power flowing to almost everyone apart from the northern part of Unst.
"We realise how frustrating it can be when the power is off, and we'd like to thank everyone for their patience as we carried out these emergency repairs, and assure them that we did all we could to safely complete the task as quickly as possible."
SSEN's frontline operational teams, designated as critical workers, continue to work tirelessly to support the safe and reliable supply of electricity at local, regional and national level, helping to provide the power on which the coronavirus response depends.