It found that while companies worked hard “in challenging circumstances” to get customers reconnected, nearly 4,000 homes had to cope without power in appalling weather conditions for over a week.
The six-month review focused on whether the power outages could have been prevented and whether power was restored quickly enough.
While companies initiated their emergency plans before the storm hit, the plans were not deemed “sufficient to deal with the scale of damage” that resulted from Storm Arwen.
Northern Powergrid, whose customers were affected by the storm, failed to directly contact vulnerable customers enrolled on its Priority Services Register (PSR) prior to Storm Arwen, a process which should have been carried out as part of its planned winter preparedness campaign.
Limited remote monitoring on the lower voltage networks also hindered energy firms from understanding the full scale and complexity of faults, impacting the number of resources they...