Government criticises slow power cut compensation

The government has told networks that it is “unacceptable” that more than a quarter of electricity customers, who were entitled to compensation after suffering lengthy power cuts following late November’s Storm Arwen, were still waiting for payments at Christmas.

In its interim review of the industry’s response, which was published on Thursday (18 February) alongside a parallel exercise carried out by Ofgem, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) said 87,935 compensation payments were due to be paid in relation to disruption caused by Storm Arwen.

However, 27.5% of these payments had not been issued by Christmas and 11.9% were still outstanding one month later.

A total of 77,501 payments had been issued as of 24 January, totalling just over £24.5 million, said the report, which was prepared through the Energy Emergencies Executive Committee that brings together network and BEIS representatives.

Network operators automatically issued compensation payments instead of waiting for customer applications following Storm Arwen, which hit northern England and Scotland on 26 November.

However, the level of outstanding payments indicates “unacceptable issues” for customers with the compensation payment system and process, according to the report.

It identified the main hurdle to swifter payments as a lack of customer details, which are normally provided by customers via claims or their energy suppliers.

The report recommended that new processes should be established to ensure payment of compensation to affected customers occurs “without delays”.

It also said networks must enhance their strategies to reduce the “unacceptably long power cuts” suffered by some households, especially those in rural areas.

Mobile generators played a “critical” role in reducing the length of power cuts and restoring supply to some customers before full repairs could be completed, with 664 in use a week after the storm hit.

However, the report said there are “limitations to the value and practicality” of these generators because they are “resource intensive to install and refuel at scale”.

“While an effective short-term solution, safely providing and refuelling enough generators for all of those affected by Arwen for a prolonged period would not be possible, therefore prioritisation of these was essential.”

The report blamed the length of power cuts on Storm Arwen’s atypical northerly wind direction causing more damage than gusts coming from the prevailing south-west would have done.

The bulk of faults were on lower voltage overhead lines that served only a small number of customers, making the restoration effort resource intensive.

And many of the faults caused by Storm Arwen were “complex”. A significant number of overhead lines experienced multiple faults across a single section of the network, each of which were not always apparent until one had been repaired, resulting in extensions to estimated restoration times.