Weather warning
Strong winds are forecast across the South East and East of England today
If you see an overhead line down, please keep well clear and call our emergency line on 105
Please treat electricity cables as live, stay at least 10 metres away from any damaged equipment, cables or grounded power lines, and call us immediately on 0800 31 63 105 or 105 (free to call from a landline or mobile phone). If you see power lines that are down or causing significant risk to the public please call 999.
Strong winds are forecast across the South East and East of England today. We are currently monitoring the weather closely and are in regular contact with the Met Office as the forecast develops. View the latest forecast from the Met Office.
Our electricity network is built to be resilient but extreme weather can affect overhead power lines. We urge the public to stay well clear from power lines and anyone spotting a damaged power line needs to report it to us immediately.
We have additional staff on duty covering operational, technical and call centre roles. As always our priorities in these situations are public safety and restoring supplies to customers as quickly and safely as possible.
We provide free extra help to people living in vulnerable circumstances, who are on our Priority Services Register. Find out more and apply.
Please treat electricity cables as live, stay at least 10 metres away from any damaged equipment, cables or grounded power lines, and call us immediately on 0800 31 63 105 or 105 (Free to call from a landline or mobile phone). If you see electricity lines that are down or causing significant risk to the public please call 999.
Preparing for bad weather
Here are a few links you may find useful
How we respond to extreme weather events
We know being without power can be extremely difficult. Our teams work around the clock to support customers during extreme weather events like storms which can impact electricity supply. Watch this video to see how our colleagues work together until every last customer has their lights back on.
Help and advice
- Keep our phone numbers handy, call 105 or 0800 31 63 105 (free to call from a landline or mobile phone)
- We urge customers who need extra support during a power cut to register for our Priority Services Register
- Keep a torch with spare batteries. We don’t recommend using candles but if you choose to, please take extra care
- Keep a mobile phone fully charged, and also a portable power bank if possible
- Its especially important if you are unwell, less mobile or very young to keep warm. Dress warmly with layers, a hat and gloves and have blankets to hand, so you can keep warm until the power is back on. You can also reduce the heat loss by closing doors on unused rooms and closing your curtains.
We aim to connect most customer supplies remotely from our control centre to get power back on as swiftly as possible. Many faults will need our engineers to drive to site to locate, excavate and repair a fault. Road conditions make travel more difficult for our engineers across the East and South East, slowing down our access to repairs, often in remote rural areas. Our teams use 4x4s to reach overhead power lines, underground cables and electricity substations across challenging terrain and in severe weather conditions.
We can offer extra assistance to those who need it. We can offer a priority number that you can call 24 hours a day and a dedicated team who will contact you to keep you updated during a power cut. Sign up to our Priority Services Register to get this free support.
Please call us on 0800 31 63 105 or 105 and we can help. Please look out for neighbours, friends or relatives during this time and let us know so we can help them.
You may be concerned at this time about the food in your fridge and freezer. Food should keep for up to 4 hours in the fridge and between 24-48 hours in the freezer depending on how full it is. These timescales are estimates and will depend on a number of factors. Try to keep your fridge and freezer doors closed as much as possible to keep the cold air within them.
If your mobile phone is running low on battery then here are a few tips to extend your battery life.
- Use the extra power saving mode if you have it
- Cut apps running in the background
- Turn down screen brightness
- Top up your battery in your car if you have a car charger
If you own an electric vehicle, or have a home battery storage system, make sure they are fully charged prior to any bad weather.
We can restore some power supplies on our high voltage network by remote control from our office, but many other sites need to be individually visited and assessed by our engineers before replacement equipment can be ordered and repair work can then start.
Our engineers are based out on the road and work from job to job, restoring power supplies as quickly and safely as possible. Where possible they prioritise the incidents where we know the largest number of customers are affected.
We worked very closely with the Met Office before the storm and put in robust plans to minimise the disruption you may experience from a storm of this scale.