Our huge operation continues as power supplies are restored to the vast majority of customers

Once again, we'll be working late into this evening as we continue to reconnect customers who remain off supply due to damage caused by Storm Floris.  A huge engineering effort has been underway for a second full day to safely and quickly reconnect these homes.

As of 5:30pm on Wednesday afternoon, power has been restored to over 70,000 customers. Over 98% of all those who lost supply due to the storm have now been reconnected. Hundreds of engineers remain out on the network this evening to reconnect the remaining 1,470 properties. Most of these are in parts of the Highlands, including communities in the Great Glen, Sheildaig, Conon Falls, Conon Bridge, Tain and Evanton. As parts of the country which were less-severely affected have been reconnected, further resources have been diverted to the Highlands. Our aim is to repair the last-remaining outages in Aberdeenshire by the end of this evening.

Considerable progress has once again been made to repair large numbers of complex faults on the network today. The focus of the ongoing restoration operation is to reconnect the final pockets of customers who lost power during Monday’s storm by Thursday night.  

Our storm response in more detail:

• Hundreds of additional engineers and field teams were mobilised from our own workforce and from SSEN Transmission, with further support from contract partners and network operators from other parts of the country. The current long daylight hours are extending the length of time that’s available to carry out network repairs.

• Specialist overhead lines teams from our central southern England network area have travelled the length of the country to reinforce restoration work in the north of Scotland.

• Helicopters and drones have been used for a second day to inspect the network from above, meaning the extent of damage can be established more quickly, and repairs planned accordingly.

• Tree-cutting teams have cleared debris hindering access to faults, thus allowing repairs to progress.

• Our Welfare Team has organised the provision of hot meals in affected communities, either by hiring in hot food vans, or by working in partnership with local cafes and restaurants. More than 4,600 meals have already been provided to customers. Opening times and locations are being updated regularly; details can be found on SSEN’s Social Media channels – ‘Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks’ on Facebook – and ‘SSENCommunity’ on X. A dedicated website ssen.co.uk/stormsupport is providing regularly updated information on locations and opening times.

• MERT Highland is assisting us in affected communities by helping visit the most vulnerable customers in their homes. The impact of the storm has caused issues with mobile networks, so house calls are being made to ensure people have access to help and information, even if they’re unable to get online. Our specialist Priority Services Team is also regularly calling customers with vulnerabilities where possible to keep them updated.

• Our Customer Contact Centre has had extra staff on duty since the weekend to take customers’ calls, answer queries on social media, and to provide advice. More than 19,000 calls have been taken, while 9,500 messages have been replied to online. The average wait time for callers has been under 90 seconds.
  

Compensation and reimbursement

As part of our support package, customers without power for more than 12 hours are entitled to £30 per person for every day off supply, to cover the cost of food and drink. People should keep hold of their receipts and claim costs back at www.ssen.co.uk/stormclaim.

Storm Floris has been confirmed as a Category 2 Severe Weather Event, which means customers without power for more than 48 hours continuously, will receive a Guaranteed Standards payment of £85.00 and a subsequent payment of £45.00 for each continuous 6 hour period that they did not have power thereafter.

Guaranteed Standards payments are issued automatically, and customers do not need to make a claim or contact us to receive this. Let your customer know our priority at this time is reconnecting the customers who are still off supply, quickly and safely.

SSEN Distribution’s Director of Customer Operations for the north of Scotland, Andy Smith, said:

“Our absolute focus this evening remains the same as when this storm first hit – to restore those customers who lost power, as safely and as quickly as we can. Thanks to a huge, combined team effort, great progress has been made over the past 24 hours, with several thousand more customers being reconnected. This work goes on, and while it does, our operation to keep our customers, supported and informed continues too.

“I’d also like to thank people and businesses in the Inverness area for their generous response to our appeal for available accommodation for our engineering teams.”

Help and advice

If you see any damage to our equipment, please stay back, don’t touch it and instead report it to us directly by calling 105, or via our Power Track Website, and engineers will investigate as soon as possible.