Lightning has continued to cause disruption to the electricity network in the Western Isles and north west Scotland for the second day running.
Nearly 30,000 customers have been without supply at some point today due to damage done to the network by lightning strikes. The biggest fault affected 27,000 customers in the Western Isles and Skye caused by a lightning strike on the high voltage transmission network. Power was restored to those customers in around two hours.
This evening around 1300 customers are without power in the Western Isles, part of Argyll and Orkney.
SHEPD engineers have worked on around 80 high voltage faults today after repairing around 120 faults yesterday. We have engineers at every fault and are working hard to ensure that supplies are restored tonight to as many customers as possible.
Unfortunately more lightning and high winds are forecast for tomorrow and there is likely to be more disruption to the network as a result.
We have been working closely with local authorities, Police Scotland and other agencies to ensure that our most vulnerable customers have been visited and offered help. We have also deployed catering vans to areas that have been off supply for long periods.
A spokesperson for SHEPD said: “We’d like to apologise to those customers who have been off supply today. We understand how inconvenient it is to be without electricity.
“We’d also like to thank them for the patience and understanding they have shown us over the last two days while our engineers have worked hard to repair faults and restore supplies. We greatly appreciate their continued support.”