Electricity North West: Reports of blackouts due to coronavirus 'simply not true'

Assuring customers that their teams of engineers are continuing working to keep power flowing, Electricity North West challenged national newspaper reports which told households to brace for blackouts as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, labelling such reports as 'simply not true'.

“In an extremely difficult time where people are working from home or self-isolating, people are reliant on electricity more than ever," said Steph Trubshaw, Customer Director for Electricity North West. “Our teams of engineers have been identified as key workers by the Government in recognition of the critical role they play for all of us.

"They’re working hard, as they always do, to keep the power flowing 24/7, 365 days a year," Steph added. “We want customers to rest assured that all jobs have been risk assessed and that any work that they see us carrying out is essential work to keep power flowing to homes, businesses and hospitals across the North West.”

Despite the lockdown, the network operator is also continuing essential maintenance to ensure the network remains resilient throughout the coming weeks and months and is responsible for maintaining and upgrading 13,000km of overhead power lines and more than 44,000km of underground electricity cables.

“It’s hard to believe, but unfortunately we’ve had members of the public challenging our teams and even being abusive to them for doing their essential roles," said Steph. "I’d like to take this opportunity to say thank you to our teams for carrying out such important roles in such difficult circumstances.”