Storm Otto: How Northern Powergrid is responding to the high winds across the region

Northern Powergrid is experiencing fault levels above business-as-usual levels and windspeeds are forecast to continue until 2pm, and is therefore, remaining on full alert.

Around 19,000 customers have been affected so far, teams are responding quickly and have already managed to reconnect over 11,000 customers.

For customers impacted, at this stage we’re hopeful that the majority of customers will have their power restored today (Friday).

The weather front bringing heavy wind started to hit the region from 5am this morning with fault levels across the region above business-as-usual levels. If the current forecast holds true, this is expected to continue through until 2pm this afternoon, so the network operator remains on full alert.

Northern Powergrid said: “We’ve seen an impact to around 18,000 customers, across 143 incidents (as at 10:30am) with the major impact across our North and West Yorkshire regions.

“Our teams responded quickly and have already made progress in restoring supplies. In these early stages our engineers have reconnected over 11,000 customers, primarily on parts of the network we can remotely reconfigure and reroute power from an alternative source. We will be working through all remaining incidents where it is safe to do so to reconnect as many customers as possible.

“At present, for customers impacted, we’re hopeful that the majority of customers will have their power restored today, with the potential of a small number that may run into Saturday.”