Power cuts in rural Scotland

Storm Arwen had us with no power, heat, landlines or mobile for 7 days. I live a village in NE Scotland with a fragile power system. It was pretty alarming to find that the landlines was also gone so we had no way of getting updates, let alone make emergency contact with anyone. We have no alternate heating as our house has no stove - during arwen the temp inside was 5 degrees. We sat in our cars for hours, letting them idle to heat us up and charge phones etc in case the masts came alive.
Seven days without heat, light, hot water, hot food etc was actually quite traumatic. Whole freezer of food lost, hundreds spent on fuel for cars for heating or driving 30 miles to get a hot meal as they didn't bother to put a food van near us.
Never again - we bought a generator and always have fuel stashed for it.

Nope, born and bred in the Highlands, moved back a few years ago.

Said from a city centre somewhere no doubt.

https://www.ssen.co.uk/news-views/2025/How-were-supporting-customers-during-storm-Amy/

Sadly nothing on Mull, I wonder how claiming the reimbursement works when you’re staying in an AirBnB 🤔

It’s normal in the Highlands and Islands, so most people know to be prepared for power cuts over winter. It’s just the nature of the beast and the logistics of getting to the affected lines.

SSE do make provision for hot food in communities that are without power - usually providing hot food vans or paying local businesses.

Some communities have generators that can go to those that need if the power is off for days.

I was talking specifically about electricity (because thats the topic under discussion) not every other unique and minor variable in someone's life!

Part of everyone's electricity bills goes into developing and maintaining the infrastructure. It is included within the overall costs everyone is charged, whether as part of the standing charge or in the amount the company charges per kW. There isn't an individual electrical infrastructure charge that varies depending on whether you live in a city or rurally.

However providing electricity is far easier and cheaper to provide to 200 people living within 1 street than to 200 people spread out over 100 miles. Surely that's obvious? The amount of cables used, the effort involved in erecting power stations and pylons, the time and distance 1 engineer can cover, etc etc.

Yet these costs are shared equally by everyone. People living rurally don't pay more for having their electricity supplied. Therefore they are subsidised by those for whom electricity is more easily and cheaplh supplied.

I don't understand how people are querying what are just objective (and obvious) facts about how the provision of pretty much any services work. It's not like I'm calling anyone greedy electricity scroungers for heavens sake!

I was talking specifically about electricity (because thats the topic under discussion) not every other unique and minor variable in someone's life!

Part of everyone's electricity bills goes into developing and maintaining the infrastructure. It is included within the overall costs everyone is charged, whether as part of the standing charge or in the amount the company charges per kW. There isn't an individual electrical infrastructure charge that varies depending on whether you live in a city or rurally.

However providing electricity is far easier and cheaper to provide to 200 people living within 1 street than to 200 people spread out over 100 miles. Surely that's obvious? The amount of cables used, the effort involved in erecting power stations and pylons, the time and distance 1 engineer can cover, etc etc.

Yet these costs are shared equally by everyone. People living rurally don't pay more for having their electricity supplied. Therefore they are subsidised by those for whom electricity is more easily and cheaply supplied.

I don't understand how people are querying what are just objective (and obvious) facts about how the provision of pretty much any services work. It's not like I'm calling anyone greedy electricity scroungers for heavens sake!

I think it’s been touted that people who live nearer power generation should get slightly lower bills as impacted by it.

I would say that the community fund set up by local wind farm has been well used by local groups.

We are in the rural SE, but in a village which is particularly prone to power cuts. We always 100% know that if towns are off too we'll be waiting longer, whereas if it's just us or us and the next village they will get us reconnected sooner. Frustrating but makes sense I guess (also they have to pay compensation once it's more than 48 hrs so it's in their interests to get bigger population centres reconnected!).

Sounds (frustratingly) normal to me. I live in rural Northumberland and regular multi-day power cuts are a fact of life.

There have been massive cuts in money spent on system maintenance over the last decade, which has unsurprisingly resulted in an increase in cuts.

I think it's surprising you haven't been left alternative means for cooking, lighting and heating - I would expect most properties with regular cuts to have these.

I live in zone 3 London and my street has had power cuts on and off for 6 months-not made the news yet…. We had a generator at the bottom of the road 4 years ago for a month. I agree with previous poster that they don’t get a bad deal, if they were that bothered they would source alternatives to the grid.

Years ago I worked on a farm in Frome for a couple of weeks (not farm related work). They had a solid fuel Rayburn cooker that could heat the radiators and provide a modest amount of hot water for a bath, in addition to a gas cooker that they ran off those large standing gas bottles (no mains gas, obviously). There was an oil tanker in the garden near the farmhouse. They also had oil lamps for use in the event of a power cut. All things you'd need if the power was down.

What would you suggest for people who have an annual power cut sometimes 3 or 4. Posdibly combined with subzero temperatures, old buildings that don’t retain heat. Roads blocked with snow. If you didn’t have a wood stove I think you’d be in danger of developing hypothermia.

Let’s 😉 I have friends on the Arran. Tesco delivers but charges £10 per crate, joys of island living!

Why isn’t a camping stove safe indoors? It is no different to a gas cooker.

We cook predominantly on lpg. The CO alarm display has never moved from zero.

Gas bottles are used in pairs. When one runs out, you switch to the other and order a replacement. They last nearly a year.

Scottish island here. We had the power off for 16 hours, then water off for another day. Friends down the road were without electricity for 3 days. That was the second time in a many months, and no doubt we’ll get more cuts during the winter. Have ordered myself a storm kettle so I have an easy way of heating water for drinks and pasta, noodles etc without having to rely on having some gas in stock.

It seems in some cases rural residents get far less funding per head of the population according to this report https://www.rsnonline.org.uk/fairer-funding-for-rural-communities.

Social care "Rural residents will also receive 13% less per head in social care support overall."

Housing "Worryingly, excluding London, the average sale price of housing is £112,300 higher in rural areas than it is in urban areas."

Transport "Budgeted spend on public transport per head (excluding concessionary fares) for 2022/23 in urban areas was five times that of rural councils."

Taxes aren't set lower for those in rural areas. Council tax is based on value of the property (see above for housing costs to get an idea). And rural areas get less services.

Not sure your claim of rural areas are more likely to subsidised is quite correct.

Oh heck, don't start the delivery costs debate! ✌️

The problem is that the Scottish highlands is very challenging geographically, being very mountainous with few good transport links, almost entirely limited to the glens, between the relatively few moderate or large population centers, and away from the primary roads, the road network is sparse, has low capacity and (relatively) is difficult to navigate. If a power line goes down in London, engineers can usually easily drive to the failure point or close to it and repair it. If a power line fails in a remote glen miles from any road, it is going to be harder and take longer to fix, and that is before you consider having to wait for poor weather conditions to abate, or get replacement parts there from who knows where if needed. This is also why delivery charges to the Scottish highlands and islands are more expensive, because of the elevated transport difficulty.

Nobody is subsidising anybody.

Not in Scotland but in a fairly out of the way part of Northern England and I agree with those who are saying it's an occupational hazard of rural living. The infrastructure is more vulnerable to disruption in bad weather, bad weather is more common, there are less people affected if the power goes out so we are not top priority when there are widespread outages, and the repairs are often technically more difficult so will take longer anyway.
C'est la vie. There are plus points about living rurally and there are downsides. This is one of the downsides.But if you live somewhere where its a relatively common happening you are prepared for it. We have a generator. In fact we have 3. One for when the electricity goes off, a spare in case the generator fails and some of our friends have just moved away and gave us their's as they no longer need it. So we have a spare for the spare now! We also have an open fire, a camping stove, candles etc all ready for use when needed. It's unlikely that a holiday cottage owner would provide all that I suppose so you were probably more inconvenienced than the permanent residents, both because you aren't used to it and because you didn't have the pre prepared kit.

surely it's not rocket science that the more people something affects, the more likely it is to be news? Obviously 400,000 people without electricity is more newsworthy than 400 (or whatever the difference is).

In terms of 'a fair deal' infrastructure costs means it's vastly more expensive per person to provide services rurally so if anything people in towns and cities are probably subsidising those who live remotely.

It fascinates me that we are moving much more renewable electricity , partly to combat the effects of climate change which includes more stormy weather … by putting up lots of overhead power cables on high ground to get power to England

Wood burners are hideous for the environment.
Camping stoves or BBQ not safe indoors.
Not easy to get gas cannisters.

Camping stove? Woodburner? BBQ? Gas heater?