A multimillion-pound programme of investment into the power network is being carried out in preparation for the winter months.
Electricity North West engineers are increasing the networks resilience and are focusing on areas which are often worst affected by extreme weather across the region from Cumbria to Cheshire.
The investment, worth more than £6m, will help make the overhead and underground power network more durable and make it quicker to restore power if damage occurs.
Investments are also being made in pruning trees close to overhead lines and improving flood defences.
Stephanie Trubshaw, Electricity North West customer director, said: “Our winter preparation and investment focuses on four key areas: preventing power cuts from happening through resilience, improving automatic restoration within three minutes, enabling us to restore power remotely from our control room and helping our teams to make repairs on site as quickly and safely as possible.
“The last storm season provided unprecedented challenges for our teams and customers, causing significant damage to the network, which impacted both repair and restoration times.
“During Storm Arwen, our automatic systems restored 18,000 properties within three minutes, and our engineers restored more than 90% of properties within 48 hours, but we will keep investing to minimise the impact of storms as much as possible. The investment will also provide us more information about when and where equipment is damaged so that we can give more accurate updates to customers affected.”
The news comes after Electricity North West stated that its portion of electricity bills, which funds maintenance and upgrades to the region’s power network, will fall by at least 5.5 per cent from 2023, despite increasing investment in the network by 33 per cent to £1.8bn over a five-year period.
Stephanie added: “We appreciate that this is a worrying time for bill payers, with energy prices forecast to keep rising in the coming months, and we are committed to reducing our part of the annual energy bill, while maintaining the highest standards of service.
“We’re building a network that’s fit for the future as the region moves towards net zero, delivering reliable energy for communities and businesses across the North West, and our winter preparation is part of how we do that.”
