April 23, 2014
Scotland

“It wasn’t wind” says government on outage

Strathspey & Badenoch Herald | 22/04/2014 | www.strathspey-herald.co.uk

The Scottish Government has given a full explanation of the problems which led to a power outage for most of the North and West of Scotland last Wednesday.

The Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth John Swinney said that a faulty electronic relay at Knocknagael sub station near Inverness was responsible.

“He said: “It is believed that the relay malfunctioned just before the power outage last Wednesday.

“Circuit breakers then identified a potential fault on the main network and opened to protect the systems that supplied the north and the west of the country from more protracted and significant damage.

“Since then SSE Power Distribution have reviewed the events and modified systems and it is confident that that will prevent a recurrence of the same problem affecting its wider network.”

Mr Swinney that the outage started at 8.36pm and all connections were back up and running by 1am the following morning.

Most were reconnected by 11.30pm but there were further problems in the Orkney area, which had a prolonged outage.

The explanation has been welcomed by Highland MSP Rob Gibson (SNP).

He said: “It is good to get details on the power outage and the reasons for it. It is clear that the problem was a technical one and that it was a precaution that the system was shut down to prevent further damage.

“It is important to get the record straight and that the baseless nonsense talked about wind power being responsible is refuted once and for all.”

URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2014/04/23/it-wasnt-wind-says-government-on-outage/