SSEN pledge extra £3.5m in the wake of Ofgem and Emergencies Committee's reports on Storm Arwen
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SSEN is committing an additional £3.5m of funding to support customers and communities in the affected areas, improving network and personal resilience.
The voluntary resposne follows the publication of reports by Ofgem and the Energy Emergencies Executive Committee (E3C) into the response to Storm Arwen.
Storm Arwen was the most significant weather event to hit Scotland in a generation with an estimated 16 million trees impacted and over 1000 points of damage recorded on SSEN’s overhead line network.
A 950-strong team worked in very difficult conditions to restore power as quickly as possible to over 100,000 homes and provide support and welfare to customers.
Key improvements have already been made to core customer and public communications processes and enhanced data flows with local resilience partnerships.
SSEN will now seek to implement further lessons learned for the coming winter and beyond.
The company has welcomed the recommendations for network operators, resilience partners and policy makers, including a heightened focus on future resilience and agrees that with increasing reliance on electricity through the decarbonisation of heat and transport, extended power outages are much less tolerable for customers.
SSEN recognises the significant impact of the storm on customers and communities in the north east of Scotland. In addition to the £4.8m in enhanced compensation it has already provided above statutory levels, the network operator has agreed to establish a further £3.5m of funding to support network and community resilience.
£1.8m of ring-fenced funding will go to local authorities in the most affected regions to support community and personal resilience projects, focused on the vulnerable, adding to the £0.5m paid into SSEN’s Resilient Communities Fund which will award this summer.
In addition, £1.2m has been allocated for additional network resilience investment, focused on enhanced protection of key circuits and contingency measures to help improve response time in future major storm events.
SSEN Director of Operations, Mark Rough, said: “Storm Arwen presented an unprecedented challenge for our customers, communities and our operation, causing damage to our network far greater than we had seen before.
"I’m very proud of the way our teams dealt with this challenge, often in extremely hostile conditions, but also recognise that customers would like us to do better still in restoring their supply more quickly.
“We have already taken steps to improve our response through listening to our customers and will continue to implement any and all learnings for future events. The additional £3.5m in funding will support this aim, helping improve our operational response and support community members, particularly those most vulnerable, improve their own resilience.
“We will now work with industry, community partners and policy makers to ensure the recommendations from the publications are appropriately reviewed, implemented and, where necessary, supported through the regulatory framework.”
