The Energy Blog Power restoration complete

Electricity supplies were restored throughout the Island within two and half hours of this morning's power failure which was due to lightning strikes in Normandy cutting supplies from the French grid to Jersey's one remaining undersea supply cable at approximately 9.15am.

Electricity supplies were restored throughout the Island within two and half hours of this morning's power failure which was due to lightning strikes in Normandy cutting supplies from the French grid to Jersey's one remaining undersea supply cable at approximately 9.15am.

Jersey Electricity immediately invoked its emergency restoration procedures at La Collette Power Station and Queen's Road. The first parts of St Helier, including the crucial business area of the Esplanade, were restored within 20 minutes, with the rest of town back on supply by 10.30am.

The East and West of the Island had to wait longer as any restoration has to be done in stages to safeguard the infrastructure.

Jersey Electricity CEO Chris Ambler said: 'We apologise to customers who we are aware will have been severely inconvenienced. The problem, which also cut supplies to Guernsey, was a result of lightning strikes on the French network in Normandy.

'We immediately invoked our normal emergency restoration procedures from La Collette Power Station and our plant at Queen's Road while we and our French partners RTE investigated the problem.

'La Collette underwent a major upgrade of generation plant last year and is capable meeting the demand of the entire Island. We have plenty of fuel stocks should the problem with the cable have turned out to be prolonged.

'In the event, RTE were able to re-activate the cable following inspection. There was a short delay while our engineers synchronised the French supply with our network. This went smoothly and the entire Island was restored by 11.35am.

'We apologise to customers for any inconveniece caused but while we are reliant on one interconnector, restorations went as well and as quickly as we could have hoped.

'This was only the fourth Island-wide power cut in eight years. Our third interconnector, Normandie 3, is on schedule for completion next year. This will improve network resilience, while our planned replacement for the failed EDF1 cable will add to our import capacity and further enhance resilience and reliability.'