Praise for SSEN engineers as OLECG meets to assess power cut impacts

OLECG – Orkney’s Local Emergency Coordination Group – has met this evening to assess the situation around the intermittent power cuts being experienced in Orkney.

All households on mains electricity in Orkney experienced a loss of power at around 7:00pm tonight. Power was restored over the next few hours, with occasional shorter power outages during this time.

Mobile phone signal was also lost for some providers.

Power to all households has now been restored with the exception of households in Rackwick.  Engineers are working hard to restore their power and further updates will follow in due course.

Whilst engineers work to address faults on the network, as a resilience measure, the Kirkwall Power Station has been brought online to provide local generation capacity and help maintain services.

Vice Chair of OLECG, Kenny MacPherson said: “Power cuts can be quite worrying and frightening for some, especially where the mobile signal and Wi-Fi connections also go down, leaving us uncertain and unsure as to what is going on. It’s been heartening to see folk coming together across social media tonight to offer reassurance and support.

“My huge thanks to the SSEN Engineer team who worked quickly tonight to restore the power and get Orkney’s lights back on again. OLECG will continue to monitor the situation and provide further updates as required.”

OLECG includes a broad range of organisations such as the Council, emergency and public services, transport providers, the utilities and voluntary sector.

More information on preparing for a power cut is available at www.powercut105.com