Kwarteng: Networks have learnt lessons of Arwen

Around 7,600 electricity customers were still without power on Tuesday evening after being cut off by the weekend’s storms, meaning that just over 20,000 have been reconnected in the past 24 hours.

According to the Energy Networks Association’s latest severe weather update, which was posted this evening, around 1.48 million customers have been reconnected after storms Eunice and Franklin hit the UK on Friday and Sunday respectively.

As of midday today, around 11,400 customers were without power.

The affected customers included the former director general for energy transformation and clean growth at the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), Julian Critchlow, who told a select committee this afternoon that his home had lost power for two hours.

The updated figures appeared following Kwasi Kwarteng ‘s statement to the House of Commons about Storm Eunice yesterday evening.

The secretary of state for business and energy said he was “pleased” network operators had improved their procedures following Storm Arwen in late November when their response was heavily criticised.

He said: “Overall, our network operators and our brave emergency services have learnt lessons about how we can improve our response, and we will continue to learn those lessons.”

Kwarteng added that he was “extremely grateful” to the network operators and the emergency responders who have been working “very hard” to keep people as comfortable as possible, such as through catering units sent to badly hit areas and smaller welfare units providing hot water and other facilities.

He said customers dialling 105 from their mobile should be automatically route them to the right operator based on their physical location.

Poor communication was one of the key areas of criticism of networks contained in twin reports into Storm Arwen, which were issued last week by Ofgem and the BEIS department.