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An island-wide power shortage that plunged Guernsey into blackout originated on a Jersey beach, it has emerged.
A section of the cable powering Jersey’s rival island at Greve de Lecq was found to be damaged over the weekend.
Engineers are now working furiously to fix the problem, having dug a “big hole”, according to a Guernsey Electricity spokesperson who confirmed to Express that the breach was on the sandy beach itself.
The outage happened last Monday, and left Guernsey in the dark for almost an hour during the home-time rush hour.
Engineers began looking for the fault soon after the power cut on Monday 1 October, and are now expected undertaking works with specialised equipment to make the necessary repairs.
We've located the source of the cable link failure that resulted in the island wide power cut on Monday 1st October. The damaged section of cable was sited on land at Greve de Lecq in Jersey.
— Guernsey Electricity (@gsyelectricity) October 10, 2018
More details here: https://t.co/1kE97llIX2 pic.twitter.com/diwtnVJTfp
Sally-Ann David, Chief Operator Officer at Guernsey Electricity, said: "Over the weekend Guernsey Electricity’s engineers located the source of the cable link failure that resulted in the island wide power cut.
"Guernsey Electricity is working closely with the cable manufacturer and specialist repair teams from across Europe to ensure a repair is undertaken as quickly as possible.
"Since Greve de Lecq is of special ecological interest, Guernsey Electricity has secured permission from the Jersey Department of Environment to dig in the area."
The fault itself is still present, and repair work has not yet started, so Guernsey is still being powered by on-island generation. But a plan is now being drawn up by Guernsey Electricity, who said it did not yet have a time scale of when repairs would take place but would provide an update in due course.
On-island generation was still suitable for the meantime, it confirmed.
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