In December 1998 parts of the UK were battered with some of the worst storms on record for over 30 years. The famous Boxing Day Storm sent wind speeds up to 125mph across central Scotland causing structural damage to properties, widespread disruption to transport links and affected power supplies to nearly a quarter of a million homes and businesses.
Whilst more than half of those customers affected were restored within 24hrs it took a total of eight days to bring everyone back on supply with over 7,000 individual faults recorded during the storm. Since then, ScottishPower Energy Networks has made significant investments to ensure that its electricity network is more resilient to storms.
In 2012 and 2013 we have had three storms of similar magnitude to contend with. However, through significant focussed investment in asset modernisation, ongoing maintenance, tree cutting and wider network automation, we managed to reduce the number of power cuts in these storms by 75% and reconnect our customers twice as quickly.
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These winter storms are becoming normality and more recently we’ve seen high winds and widespread flooding throughout December and into the New Year. We recognise the impacts that power cuts can have on our customers, especially during storm conditions where outages can be prolonged. Getting important updates and advice to our customers is often challenging during the initial stages given the sheer scale of the damage that has to be assessed and the difficulties our teams face getting to the root of the problem.
To do this, we use a range of contact options including 24hr Contact Centres, SMS text messaging and regular online updates via our website. We’ve also launched a new dedicated Twitter channel to engage with our customers and the communities we serve, making sure that important updates reach our customers when the lights go out. Where possible, I also appear on TV and radio news channels to ensure, especially during a storm, that customers understand what we are facing and that we are doing our utmost to return their supply.
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We’re also working hard to ensure that our customers know what to do during power cuts and this week marks the start of our winter awareness campaign with advertising across roadside billboards, transport hubs and local buses. Our campaign features our own people and highlights the important role they play in maintaining electrical supply for over 3 million customers.
It is clear our network is now more robust than at any time in our history which was shown by the way the ScottishPower Energy Network team managed the impact of this year’s severe winter weather conditions, speedily reconnecting customers and minimising power interruptions whilst, as always, paying particular attention to safety.
Our network resilience is key to what we do; core to our business is a commitment to ‘keep the lights on’ and our performance in this area drives the reputation we have with customers, government and external stakeholders.
