Deteriorating weather conditions continue to hamper efforts to repair the electricity network in northern and western Scotland.
Scottish Hydro Electric Power Distribution has restored supplies to 73,000 customers, following hurricane winds of up to 113mph in places, which wreaked havoc across much of Scotland. The worsening weather has also brought heavy snowfalls and ice overnight, making some roads impassable and access to the network difficult. Where it has been safe to do so engineers worked through the night to restore power supplies, with the rest opening at 0600. 32,000 customers are currently without power.
Alan Broadbent, Director of Engineering, explained some of the challenges now facing technical staff: “Our electricity network was battered continuously by hurricane winds for eight hours on Thursday night and during much of Friday. This has weakened it in places, which caused more power cuts overnight. I know an apology may not be much comfort for our customers who have been without power, but I would like to reassure them that we are doing all we possibly can during extremely treacherous, challenging and severe weather conditions.”
With the worsening weather picture, SHEPD also boosted the number of engineers. On top of the thousand technical and support staff, 200 more were drafted in yesterday afternoon from SHEPD’s sister company in England, and also from other electricity network operators around the UK.
The 32,000 customers without power are in the following areas:
| Area | Customers Affected |
| Buchan | 675 |
| Rural parts of Dingwall | 3608 |
| Rural parts of Dunoon | 657 |
| Elgin/Huntly | 1070 |
| Rural parts of Fort William | 539 |
| Inverness-shire | 7569 |
| Rural parts of Oban | 1102 |
| Rural parts of Perth | 1736 |
| Shetland | 1954 |
| Skye | 4664 |
| Western Isles | 4656 |
| Rural parts of Wick | 4112 |
Keep an eye on SSEPD's live storm feed on their website for all of the latest updates.