Electricity North West's priority following an unplanned power cut is to restore power for our customers as soon as possible.
There are two ways we can do this, permanent restoration or temporary restoration.
A permanent restoration is when we have been able to complete all the repairs. This gives us a resilient and reliable network for our customers; although we can never guarantee that your power won't be impacted by an unplanned or planned power cut in the future.
When our overhead network becomes damaged we will carry out complex works to permanently restore the damage.
This can involve replacing over head cables, pole mounted transformers (PMT's) or even the electricity pole itself.
If this is required you are likely to see many Electricity North West engineers and equipment on site as this type of work can be complex and timely to complete.
When an underground cable faults and causes a power cut, in order to repair the faulty cable we have to complete excavation (digging) work to access and repair the cable.
The location of the fault can be at any point on the network, such as: the pavement, the road, in a grass verge etc. We rely on equipment to help us locate the faulty part of the cable before we start the excavation.
Once we have the location, we complete site checks to carry out the works safely. Sometimes this will involve working with local authorities to close roads, bus stops and create temporary traffic lights.
We work within the guidance of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 when excavating in public areas.
After we have repaired the cable, we will leave the excavation open for a short period of time to allow the jointing of the new cable to settle. Then we will reinstate the excavation to its former condition.
A temporary restoration happens when complex repairs are required that can take time to fix. These types of restoration allow us to get power on quicker while we continue with the works. When there is a temporary restoration we may require a further disruption to your power so we can complete the permanent restoration, however we will always try to notify you beforehand.
A method of temporary restoration is diverting your supply.
Where the network allows, we will switch your electricity supply onto a different cable, enabling us to bypass any known faults.
If we are able to do this, it will reduce the length of time you are without power and enable us to continue permanent repairs on the known faulty cable.
Generators will sometimes be used for temporarily restoring customers whilst we complete permanent repairs.
If we become aware that the repair is likely to be for an extended period then we will order generators through our network partners, who will ensure there is a robust refuelling strategy in place and connect to our network safely.
If we have restored through generators, you will remain on this until we have completed the repair, you may experience a short outage whilst we connect you back to our network.
There are types of power cuts called transient faults which cause multiple interruptions.
When we become aware of a transient fault we connect monitoring equipment at the local substation which has two benefits:
If you are currently experiencing an unplanned power cut and would like further information on what to do during a power cut please read more