Parts of Aberfeldy in Perthshire were in the dark late on Friday afternoon after an electricity blackout in the morning was still causing power failure seven-hours later in some homes.
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) was alerted to a fault at just before 10am on an overhead transformer in the Highland Perthshire town.
A local resident took to Facebook describing seeing “a big green flash over rooftops.”
Another eyewitness described seeing a second transformer “blowing up” on the Urlar Road at 10.15am. “Above us there was a bright light explosion and then bang!”
The supply automatically went off to 263 neighbouring properties as a safety block on the fault.
SSEN dispatched engineers to put a new transformer in place and by 1pm, around half the homes had their electric back.
Breadalbane Academy contacted parents to explain that the morning’s remote learning was being interrupted for some local children and online there was a scramble for students to access their data allowance through mobile devices so they could continue to follow lessons.
The first chunk of properties were able to get the lights and heating back on at lunchtime but 155 properties continued to have a power cut until 5pm.
Steven Dow, chef and shop owner said his business has been closed for the past two weeks otherwise his refrigerated display cabinets would have been stocked with perishable goods and ready meals.
“I got electricity back in my house at 1pm plus I have gas heating and a wood burner.
“At 5pm I could still see men up the poles on Alma Avenue.
“But seven hours of no power was a nightmare for some of the old folks in the town.
“I’m an emergency keyholder for some older people and with snow lying on the ground, keeping their heating running has been a priority these past weeks.
“With it getting dark early and lights not working and in some cases all the heating down, I really feel for those who live in the parts of town that did not come back on till 5pm.”
A spokesperson for SSEN said: “We would like to apologise to our customers who have been affected by this power cut and assure them our engineers are doing all they can to get the power back on as safely and as quickly as possible.
”When faults like this occur, this causes our safety equipment to operate and temporarily turn off the power - in this case to 263 nearby properties in Aberfeldy.
“On the rare occasions there is a power cut, our priority is to restore our customers’ supplies as safely and as quickly as possible.
“Engineers were despatched to the fault this morning and are currently working to install a new transformer, and we hope to have the 155 properties which are currently off supply, back on shortly.
“Once everyone’s power is back on, our teams will carry out a fault-finding investigation to establish what caused the fault on the transformer.”
