Northern Ireland Electricity Networks: Investigation into mystery of power cuts to 14,000 customers today

Northern Ireland Electricity Networks is investigating the cause of mysterious power cuts in Co Down today which caused some 14,000 customers to lose power.
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By Philip Bradfield
Published 5th May 2023, 19:55 BST
Updated 5th May 2023, 19:55 BST

The online faults map from the provider said there were outages today in Londonderry, Belfast, Carrickfergus, Lurgan, Banbridge, Tandragee, Dromore, Annahilt and Newry.

A spokeswoman told the News Letter that a fault occurred on the 33kv line affecting 14,000 customers in the Dromore, Rathfriland and Poyntzpass areas at 11.47am today.

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"Engineers responded immediately and power was restored at 12.15pm," she added.

Some 14,000 customers across Northern Ireland lost electricity today, but the cause has not yet been disclosed.Some 14,000 customers across Northern Ireland lost electricity today, but the cause has not yet been disclosed.
Some 14,000 customers across Northern Ireland lost electricity today, but the cause has not yet been disclosed.

However some areas also experienced further brief disruptions in the afternoon.

The spokeswoman said the fault was primarily in those areas but that the lines also feed across to Newry, Annahilt and Tandragee, so that part of these areas may have been affected also.

She added that network staff were "patrolling the line to ascertain the cause" but was unable to confirm today what the root of the problem had been.

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In Londonderry there was a one-off fault which ended up being a customer’s own trip, there was also some planned work going on in Londonderry and in Belfast there was a cable fault affecting 12 customers with a restoration time of up to four hours, she added.

Related topics:BelfastNewryAnnahiltEngineersBanbridge