"High voltage fault" affects thousands

Thursday 17 October 2019

Households across the island lost power last night, with the northern parishes bearing the brunt of the cut.

While some found their electricity was restored almost instantly, many houses in the Vale and St Sampson's were without power for nearly two hours.

"There was a high voltage fault on the distribution network in the Vale area which resulted in some customers experiencing a power outage between 21:30 and 23:15," explained Head of Generation at the utility, Jon Sexton. "Our engineers responded quickly in the power station to identify the issue before restoring supplies."

"We apologise for any disruption cause to our customers and understand that having no power can be frustrating."

Guernsey Electricity recently warned customers of the increased likelihood of power cuts, while works to get the new inter-island subsea cable up and running continue.

"This event again reinforces the need for Guernsey to have secure and reliable undersea electricity cable connections to the island so that the power station can be used as a back-up measure.

"The new subsea cable between Guernsey and Jersey has been successfully laid and will be energised by early November. Guernsey Electricity also continues to progress a second cable connection direct to France to further enhance the security of electricity supply."