Much of the power cuts taking effect across the South East appear to have been unplanned, with UK Power Network’s website citing faults which occurred on underground electricity cables affecting several local areas.
Up to 514 households were affected by power cuts in Essex, including in the town of Chelmsford, which reportedly had its power restored at 07:38 am.
Hundreds of households were affected in Surrey too, also reportedly due to a cable fault on a high voltage network, sparking an area-wide power cut.
In one Surrey area, the village of Mayford, up to 459 customers were reportedly affected across 16 postcodes, as indicated on UK Power Network’s Power Cut map.
In Suffolk, up to 58 households were affected across a number of areas on the outskirts of Ipswich.
A number of areas in Greater London were also affected, including Beckenham, Eltham, East Ham, Hornchurch and Enfield.
East Sussex was also affected, including parts of Hastings and the village of Wartling.
Several customers in Norwich in Norfolk experienced power outages too, including a number of villages on the outskirts of the city.
And a number households in Kent also suffered blackouts, including customers in the famous town of Canterbury, which also reported an area-wide cut at 07:03 am on August 8.
UK Power Networks reported that over 3,000 customers in total were affected by power outages across the regions.
According to Citizens Advice, customers may be able to get compensation when their electricity or gas supply goes off.
In a power outage, it is the network operator’s responsibility to fix the cuts and pay the compensation.
According to National Grid ESO, UK power cuts are now extremely rare, marking a significant departure from the days of the 1970s when there were regular blackouts.
But local outages do still occur for a number of reasons.
For instance, natural accidents such as lightning strikes, flooding and fallen trees can cause damage to cables and equipment.
Contractors may also damage cables when working on equipment in some instances.
The last major power outage in the UK was back in August 2019, when lightning struck two different power stations in a freak occurrence.
One million people were left without power for a few minutes, but it caused major disruption to transport, homes and businesses.
The Met Office explains that you should contact your Electricity Distribution Network Operator (DNO) in the event of a cut, which is responsible for maintaining the physical electricity supplies to homes and businesses.
While not selling electricity to consumers, DNOs both own and operate the distribution network of towers and cables that bring electricity from the national transmission network to consumers.
This is a breaking story. More to follow.