Highland homes hit by fresh power cuts: 125 faults since Saturday, 47 still with homes off

125 faults since Saturday, most of them on Sunday

SSEN, which runs the electricity network in the north of Scotland, publishes its live faults with the number of homes each has off, and we read that feed every 10 minutes into our outage ledger. Since Storm Boelo's first warning for Highland came into force at noon on Saturday 24 October, SSEN has listed 125 unplanned faults in the Highland council area. Over their whole listing, 119 listed only Highland postcodes; 6 also listed postcodes in Argyll and Bute or Moray at some point. Our live power-cut tracker has the current list and a postcode lookup.

Most of them came on one day. 106 new faults started on Sunday 25 October, by SSEN's own start times, against a typical 3 a day (the median) in our calm-weather baseline from 29 September to 17 October. Saturday had 11, all after noon, and Monday 8, up to 17:10. In the days before the storm it was 5 on Wednesday, 4 on Thursday and 5 on Friday.

The homes off peaked on Sunday afternoon. At our 13:52 reading, SSEN's faults wholly in Highland had 12,248 homes off between them, on 58 faults; counting four more that listed Argyll and Bute postcodes as well, it was 14,116. By 10:32 on Monday it was 5,867, on 59 faults wholly in Highland. At 17:10, SSEN's live feed showed 3,731 homes off on 46 faults wholly in Highland, a fall of more than two-thirds from Sunday's busiest reading; one more fault, which also lists Argyll and Bute postcodes, had 43. Of the 125 faults, 78 were off SSEN's list or showed no homes off by 17:10, and 47 still had homes off.

The largest single fault was on Skye: 5,558 homes across the IV47, IV48, IV49, IV51, IV55 and IV56 postcode districts, which cover Carbost, Sconser, Broadford, Portree and Uig, Dunvegan and Struan. SSEN gives its start as 01:52 GMT on Sunday, and SSEN had stopped listing it by 14:42 the same afternoon.

Monday's fresh faults: 8 since midnight

Monday's new faults are far fewer than Sunday's. From midnight to 17:10, SSEN listed 8 new faults in Highland, by its own start times. Their peak homes counts add up to 1,208, and at 17:10, 5 of them still had homes off, 220 between them.

The largest: 399 homes in the Strathpeffer (IV14) district, no longer showing homes off by 17:10; 264 around Lairg and Brora (IV27 and KW9), with 72 still off; 252 in the Wick (KW1) district, with 15 still off; 145 in the Dornoch (IV25) district, with 110 still off; and 119 in the Thurso (KW14) district, no longer showing homes off by 17:10.

What is still off, and when SSEN expects it back

The biggest fault still open has 945 homes off in the Ardgay and Bonar Bridge (IV24), Lairg (IV27), Garve (IV23) and Muir of Ord (IV6) postcode districts. SSEN gives its start as 13:35 on Sunday, and its estimate for restoring it is 20:00 on Tuesday 27 October. A second open fault lists the same five postcode sectors and showed 850 homes off at 17:10, so some homes there may be counted on both. The next largest are 530 homes around Acharacle (PH36), estimate 20:00 on Tuesday; 233 around Ardgay and Lairg (IV24 and IV27), estimate 20:00 on Wednesday 28 October; and 233 around Beauly (IV4), estimate 20:00 on Tuesday. Most open faults are small: only 5 of the 46 have more than 200 homes off.

At 17:10 on Monday, SSEN's own estimates for the 46 open faults wholly in Highland included 20:00 on Tuesday for 19 faults with 2,100 homes and 20:00 on Wednesday for 15 faults with 427 homes. Four faults with 15 homes had an estimate of 20:00 on Thursday 29 October, and three faults with 163 homes had no estimate yet. These are SSEN's estimates, not ours.

The open fault with the earliest SSEN start time is around Ballachulish and Kinlochleven (PH49 and PH50). SSEN now gives its start as 21:34 on Saturday, though it first appeared on SSEN's list at about 12:20 on Sunday. At 17:10 on Monday it showed 51 homes off, and SSEN's estimate is 20:00 on Wednesday 28 October.

Highland is one of several council areas still affected. At 17:10, SSEN's feed showed 3,161 homes off on 67 faults wholly in Aberdeenshire, 2,519 on 25 in Perth and Kinross and 2,211 on 33 in Argyll and Bute, among others.

SSEN's own figures cover the whole north of Scotland, not just Highland. At 7pm on Sunday it said more than 54,000 customers had had their electricity restored and 38,000 homes were still without power, after "gusts up to 85mph felt in some parts of the north of Scotland". In its Monday 1pm update, SSEN said that as of 10.30 that morning "more than 76,000 customers have had their electricity restored with work ongoing to reconnect the remaining 22,000 without power", over two thirds of those affected. It cites fallen trees, flooding and difficult access.

The warnings: none in force in Highland now

Storm Boelo, named by the Met Office on 22 October, brought three warnings to the Highlands & Eilean Siar region: a yellow wind warning from noon on Saturday to 21:00 on Sunday, an amber wind warning from 21:00 on Saturday to 21:00 on Sunday, and a yellow rain warning from 21:00 on Saturday to 15:00 on Sunday. We covered the naming in our 22 October story.

At 17:10 on Monday, the Met Office feed showed no warning in force in Highland. The next is a yellow wind warning for Highlands & Eilean Siar, which covers Highland and Na h-Eileanan Siar, from 03:00 to 21:00 on Tuesday 27 October. It also covers Grampian, Orkney & Shetland, Strathclyde, Central, Tayside & Fife, Lothian & Borders and Northern Ireland. The Met Office feed gives it no storm name. Our weather warnings tracker shows the current warnings.

Who to call, and what help there is

To report a power cut or damaged equipment, call 105 or use SSEN's Power Track website. If you see damage to the network, stay back from it and don't touch it.

SSEN's Priority Services line is 0800 294 3259. SSEN lists who can join: people who are deaf or hard of hearing, blind or partially sighted, over 60, or living with a disability or a chronic illness; households with children under five; and anyone with medical equipment or aids that rely on electricity. The same number is for anyone who, or whose loved one, has particular vulnerabilities and wants to discuss additional support. SSEN says it is proactively contacting its most vulnerable customers and "continuing our welfare operation, supporting communities and customers who have been without power for an extended period". Welfare van locations and times are on SSEN's Facebook and BlueSky (@ssencommunity) pages and via local resilience partners.

If you have been without power for more than 12 hours, SSEN's support package covers "£30 per person for every day without power, to cover the cost of food and drink". Keep your receipts and claim at ssen.co.uk/stormclaim. Priority Services customers can also claim reasonable costs for alternative accommodation after more than 24 hours without power, and SSEN says "if a power cut is estimated to last beyond 48 hours, all customers can benefit from this support". Our power-cut food safety guide covers the fridge and freezer, and our power cut guide the rest.

That is separate from Ofgem's Guaranteed Standards payments. In Ofgem's words: "You will automatically be paid by your local network operator if you do not have power for a certain number of hours", and "You do not need to make a claim." In severe weather, Ofgem uses two storm categories based on "how many faults it has caused in a high-voltage area in one day", which are "different to the storm categories issued by the Met Office". In Category 1, "at least 8 to 13 times more faults than normal", the payment is £90 for the first 24 hours, then £45 for every 6 hours after. In Category 2, "at least 13 times more faults than normal", it is £90 for the first 48 hours, then £45 for every 6 hours after. The maximum in either is £2,235. Our fault counts include low-voltage faults and are not Ofgem's measure, so they cannot tell you which of Ofgem's categories applies. Ofgem adds: "You will not receive extra payments for being on a priority service register." Our compensation tracker and guide to the payment rules have more.

How we count

Highland here means the Highland council area. It does not include Na h-Eileanan Siar, Orkney, Moray or Argyll and Bute. A fault counts as Highland when a postcode sector SSEN lists for it is in Highland, on postcodes.io's council lookups, the same method as our power-cut tracker. A fault is "wholly in Highland" at a reading when every sector it lists at that reading is in Highland. We count unplanned faults only, from SSEN's own start time, and leave out listings that show only a restored fault or no homes off. SSEN sometimes revises a fault's start time, and we use its latest. SSEN later closed 6 of the 125 faults by merging them into another job, so a few may be the same cut under two numbers.

SSEN's feed counts customers, which we call homes here. The homes-off figures add up SSEN's count for every fault listed at the same moment. A home listed on two faults would count twice, so they are not a count of different homes. A fault stays listed until its last home is back, so some homes on a fault are restored before it leaves the list, and we do not say how long any home was off. We left out two SSEN jobs whose listings for a time also carried one Invergarry postcode sector but which SSEN now lists in Aberdeenshire only.

Times are UK time: BST on Saturday, then GMT after the clocks went back early on Sunday, which made Sunday a 25-hour day. Place names are the post towns, or the main places Wikipedia's postcode tables list, for each district SSEN gives; we do not place villages ourselves. Earlier figures come from our ledger's readings of SSEN's feed, every 10 minutes; the latest from SSEN's live feed at 17:10 on Monday 26 October.