Power cuts

I've just received the following reply from EDF Energy to my recent letter about the power cuts that have affected Putney over the past few months. It's really good to learn that as a result of the problems I raised, EDF are now taking action to strengthen the power cable network in Putney, which should reduce the likelihood of outages in future.

Dear Stuart

Thank you for your correspondence regarding the electricity supply in the SW15 area. I was sorry to learn of the power cuts that may have affected both domestic and commercial properties and for any inconvenience this caused.

On receipt of your email I contacted the Lead Field Engineer (LFE) for your area and he has provided me with the following which I hope will be useful.

SW15 is fed from our Carslake Main Substation and in recent months we had four faults on our high voltage underground cable network:

• 17 September 16:56hrs - 256 customers restored in under 3 minutes by remote control
• 10 November 17:54hrs - 1578 customers affected with final restoration at 21:14hrs. This fault affected a shopping centre
• 27 November 06:55hrs - 817 customers affected with final restoration at 10:56hrs. This fault affected Upper Richmond Road including the railway station
• 1 December 19:19hrs - 213 customers affected with final restoration at 20:15hrs

We strive to give all our customers a safe and secure supply of electricity. However, despite our best efforts, interruptions to supply can occur for a variety of reasons. Some of these are not within our control and for this reason we cannot guarantee a continuous supply.

However, I wish to assure you as soon as we become aware of a problem on our network every effort is made to restore supplies quickly so the resulting impact is kept to a minimum.

I can confirm that the above faults are unrelated and we are not aware of any inherent problems with the network in your area but we will continue this area closely and should further problems arise we take the necessary action to resolve them. At the time of writing we have not had any faults on our high voltage network so far this year.

However, in order to reinforce the network which we believe to be vulnerable we are going to replace and upgrade a considerable amount of underground cable. The first 100metre section has now been commissioned and will be in the area of Carslake Road, Westleigh Road and Genoa Avenue.

The above relates to our high voltage network but as mentioned in my message yesterday there may have been more faults, such as the one you mention on 6 January 2009, that we will only be able to look at via specific postcodes.

I appreciate the links you provided but due to company security I only have access to sites regarded as business critical. Therefore I would once again ask for specific postcodes if possible, coupled with dates of the failures relating to that postcode.

Should you have residents who would like to know about specific faults particular top their properties please as them to either email our Customer Relations team at customer.relations@edfenergy.com or write to Customer Relations, EDF Energy Networks, Fore Hamlet, Ipswich, IP3 8AA.

They can also call a free phone number 0800 028 4587.

I hope the information I have provided is useful to you. However, you have my details below and if you require any further assistance please let me know.

Regards,

Mark

Mark Methven
Senior Customer Relations Officer