We’re contacting you to inform you that we’ve moved to Yellow Alert status in the north of Scotland ahead of severe weather being brought by Storm Boelo, which is forecast over the weekend.

This heightened alert level reflects the strong likelihood that the storm-force winds on Saturday and Sunday will affect our customers’ power supplies. Over the past few days, we’ve been increasing our level of preparedness, and we're ready to respond.

On Saturday gusts of around 70mph will begin hitting the Western Isles from lunchtime, before subsiding for a few hours. Speeds will pick up once more from 9pm onwards, affecting the Western Isles again and also moving across the West Coast of Scotland.

On Sunday the winds will remain continuous through the early hours on the West Coast, where speeds will be reaching up to 75mph. The gusts will hit the North Highlands from 6am onwards, at speeds of up to 83mph. We anticipate the worst of the winds will be from 12pm through to 6pm, particularly in the Highlands and Orkney Islands, but also ongoing across affect the Argyll and the West Coast the Western Isles, and also the northern parts of the North East region.

The Met Office has now upgraded its own weather warnings; an Amber Weather Warning for Wind is now in place across Scotland from 9pm on Saturday through to 9pm on Sunday evening.

How SSEN is responding

In response, we’re now activating our well-rehearsed contingency plans; bringing in additional teams to deal with any damage to the network and subsequent faults, which may interrupt customers’ power supplies.   

We’ve increased the number of people who'll be on duty in our Customer Contact Centres, where they’ll be ready to answer calls and respond to social media. In advance of Storm Boelo arriving, we'll be sending information via text message to more than 220,000 of our more vulnerable customers to provide them with guidance on what preparations to make, along with help and advice on what they can do if the power goes off.

Help and advice

Can we ask that you share these important messages with members of your communities to allow them to prepare for any potential disruption of supply.

If you see any damage to our equipment, please stay back, don’t touch it and instead report it to us directly by calling 105, or via our Power Track website, and engineers will investigate as soon as possible.

Customers are also being encouraged to be prepared for the possibility of disruption to supplies by:

• Saving the emergency power cut number - '105' - to your phone to report any loss of supply or damage to the electricity network

• Visiting our Power Track Website to give you details of power cuts and restoration times. You can also report power cuts and network damage through Power Track.

• Visiting the "Preparing for a power cut" section on our website, where there is a wealth of advice and information, or to chat live to one of our advisors via the Webchat service

Customers are also eligible for our Priority Services Register (PSR) if they:

• Are deaf or hard of hearing

• Have a disability

• Live with children under five

• Are blind or partially-sighted

• Have a chronic illness

• Use medical equipment/aids reliant on electricity

• Are over 60

To find out more about the PSR, click here or call 0800 294 3259.

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