Today I gave evidence to the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee at the House of Commons. It was a lively and constructive session, although media reports seem to have ignored some of the stats and some of the great work our engineers did over the Christmas period, focussing instead on the criticism. So here is the information we submitted in written evidence to the Committee. A great team effort, in difficult conditions. I'd also encourage you to have a look at the consultation we issued on 3 January - we're keen to hear your views on how we can improve.
Written Evidence: Restoring Power over Christmas 2013
SSEPD is responsible for maintaining and improving the electricity network across Central Southern England and the north of Scotland. This paper summarises its response to the extreme weather affecting the electricity network over Christmas 2013.
On 23/24 December 2013 the electricity distribution network in central southern England was affected by devastating gale force winds of up to 80mph leading to over 800 faults on the network and 620,000 homes losing power. The wind speeds and heavy rain led to flooding, impassable roads, ground saturation, and fallen trees. Unusually, the severe weather affected both the north of Scotland and south central England. This made for some of the most challenging working conditions our workforce have ever faced when trying to restore power.
The dedication of Southern Electric Power Distribution (SEPD) engineers, tree-cutters and customer service staff was exceptional. The team’s efforts were aided by the patience of customers to whom we would like to extend our gratitude. We always strive to improve our performance and so have launched a consultation to get views from employees, partner organisations, other agencies, and, most importantly, customers on what else might be done to make the electricity network more resilient and to help customers when power cuts
http://www.ssepd.co.uk/HaveYourSay/December2013StormConsultation/
Our response to the Christmas storms
- Over 1,000 engineers and operational employees were deployed north and south – 420% more than usual for repairing faults in the south and 640% more in the north.
- As a result 99% of those affected had their power restored within 48hrs.
- We worked closely with our multi-agency partners to ensure a joined-up response.
- We provided 23,500 hot meals and 40,000 hot drinks during the storms.
- A number of care homes, pubs, restaurants and hotels were connected with mobile generators.
Contingency planning and our ability to respond to disruption
- SEPD’s sophisticated weather monitoring systems allow us to plan up to 5 days in advance
- The Christmas storm was our third storm in December and the advanced warning allowed us to implement our detailed resilience plans in advance.
- SEPD has invested £1.6bn in the last decade and SHEPD has invested over £600m to improve network resilience ahead of this winter.
- Maintaining our asset base is essential – we routinely maintain at-risk sites, flood mitigation measures and vegetation management.
- We undertake a winter preparedness exercise in early autumn to ensure our procedures deliver the correct level of awareness and operational organisation.
Communication to customers
- SEPD dealt with over 180,000 customer calls over the course of Christmas week.
- Updates were provided to customers via 103,000 text messages and 2,000 tweets.
- 12,500 outbound calls were made to vulnerable and priority customers.
- SEPD was in constant contact with UK Government, local authorities, all emergency services, MOD, Met Office, EA, NHS, Highways, other utilities and charitable organisations.
- We made extensive use of regional media, local press and radio stations as well as social media.
- We provided updates for elected representatives and key stakeholders at least 3 times per day.
Compensation for disruption to power supplies
- Christmas is an important time for customers. That is why we have chosen to provide enhanced compensation which goes above and beyond the standard compensation payments determined by Ofgem.
- Any customer who was without electricity for any time on Christmas Day, regardless of the duration of the power cut, will be guaranteed £75. We estimate around 12,000 customers will be eligible for this.
- We also estimate that around 8,000 customers will be eligible for compensation at double the levels applicable under the relevant Guarantee Standard’s legislation.
- We’ve promoted the available compensation and made them easy to access. As of 14th January 2014, 10,700 customers had made a claim.