Storm Franklin, Storm Eunice, Storm Dudley, Storm Malik, Storm Corrie, Storm *any* class action lawsuit
Letting the privatised electricity utilities and the Tory Government off lightly?
Make them pay with a class action lawsuit to fund the costs of back-up generators to be installed for homes whose power was cut off for days.
The compensation offered and automatically credited to customer accounts by the SSEN is presumably as the SSEN’s webpage states but such limited compensation payments would not be sufficient to cover the costs of upgrading the customers’ demonstrably unreliable electrical power supply by the installation at their homes of stand-by generators, fuelled by diesel, petrol or gas, with a maximum power rating of at least 25kVA 20kW (or the equivalent per household meter supplied from a communal generator) and connected with an automatic transfer switch so that the generator powers up immediately there is a mains power cut and shuts off again when mains power is restored (costing I gather at least £5800 + installation costs + VAT).
So a satisfactory compensation offer from the SSEN and other electricity utility companies similarly undone by Storms Arwen, Malik, Corrie etc. should in addition to the financial compensation already paid, also promptly include a new offer to upgrade the power supply service by installing stand-by generators as previously described to all those who suffered a power cut of 24 hours or longer.
It is reasonable for a said utility’s own employees or preferred contractors to manage, purchase, timetable and install such stand-by generators providing they do the work in a timely fashion, beginning with those homes which suffered the longest periods of power cuts – 9 days, then 8 days, 7, 6 etc. and ending with those who suffered a power cut of between 24 and 48 hours.
Where a utility neglected or refused to make any offer to upgrade the power supply service to customers who suffered power cuts in Storm Arwen etc. then the Storm Class Action Lawsuit would be duty bound to consider taking court action against such a delinquent utility for damages to cover the costs of customers individually hiring their own contractor to install stand-by generators.
SSEN Resilient Communities Fund
Stakeholder consultation answers
My answers to the stakeholder consultation questions on the criteria and the scope of the fund.
Sent by email, 30th January 2022
No, I am not at all supportive of the inadequate funding nor the lazy approach of the SSEN Resilient Communities Fund for the north of Scotland which seems to me to be wholly inadequate to meet the possible compensatory demands for back-up power solutions for any and all SSEN customers who have suffered power cuts, whether such demands be made individually or collectively, as described in my emails to the SSE’s Craig Mullen, appended below, or as otherwise demanded.
Obviously, a physical resilience project installing a back-up power solution for an individual SSEN customer, requiring a stand-by generator to be installed at or near that customer’s home address may be said to be a solution of “sole benefit to an individual” and therefore excluded from the SSEN’s Resilient Communities Fund as I understand your current criteria; I cannot support any exclusion of any SSEN customer who has suffered a power cut.
Neither can I support the limit of £20,000 for projects considering that a physical resilience project or linked series of projects installing back-up power solutions costing in excess of £20,000, indeed costing in excess of £1 million may be demanded by an organised or represented group of dissatisfied SSEN customers from a neighbourhood, a village, a council ward, a town, a council area, or indeed from anywhere across the whole area of the SSEN’s operations in the north of Scotland.
I suggest that the SSEN should be much more ambitious, generous, proactive and determined to fund and to implement projects to install back-up power solutions for all the SSEN’s customers who have suffered a power cut of longer than 24 hours and prioritise for immediate implementation projects for those who have suffered the longest power cuts ahead of delayed implementation of projects for those who have suffered shorter power cuts – perhaps “delayed”, because Rome was not built in a day, but never abandoned implementation.
I suggest that even if the SSEN finds it acceptable or tolerable that any of its customers should suffer power cuts of 24 hours or longer, I do not find that acceptable nor tolerable in the least, financial compensation so far paid notwithstanding and so I demand that the SSEN strain every sinew of its corporate body to ensure that such lengthy power cuts are consigned to history regardless of whatever storms nature is capable in future.
Generator hazards
Best to site your generator at the far end of your garden, as far away from windows and doors as possible. Never run a generator indoors.
Communal generators
Adjacent properties can be much more economically powered by the same stand-by generator because the peak power requirements are less than proportional to the number of properties because it is highly unlikely that neighbours will all want to take a power shower at the same time.
So for example, a 300kVA / 242kW 3-phase generator could power 24 all-electrically-heated homes @ 10kW maximum average simultaneous peak power or 48 gas heated homes @ 5kW maximum average simultaneous peak power. At a sale price of £23,021 (no longer on offer) that worked out at £960 per all-electric and only £480 per gas heated property!
The difficulty with communal generators is someone’s got to manage them – the electric utility company or a council or a surprisingly well-organised neighbourhood maybe?
Electricity Network Resilience
Quote initially from BBC News: Storm Corrie: Thousands without power after second storm then corrected for accuracy.
Deputy first minister John Swinney told Good Morning Scotland there was an “improving situation” across Scotland following the two “serious storms” over the weekend.
“We have to explore – and the power companies particularly have to do this – as to how they can build more resilience into the network,” he said.
“Some of that may be at the elementary end of the spectrum of undertaking proactive tree cutting to make sure that power lines are protected as far as possible from the falling of trees.
“At the other end of the spectrum we have to be constantly looking at what should be the resilience of the network – should we have as many power lines that are overhead power lines?
“Should we look to be undergrounding power lines? Obviously there’ll be a financial impact of that on the investment that’s got to be made in the network but these are all issues that need to be looked at given the increased severity of wind and incidents of this type.”
Deputy First Minister John Swinney is absolutely correct in his comments.
However, he and the Scottish Government are obstructed from forcing the hand of the power companies to live up to their responsibilities to enhance the resilience of the electricity networks in Scotland because energy is a matter reserved to the UK. Councils throughout the UK are likewise thwarted because Westminster “knows best” even if actually that’s rarely true in the case of a Tory government!
However, the Scottish Government is not powerless; ScotGov can use its governance of the legal system in Scotland to ensure that the Scottish Legal Aid board funds solicitors acting on behalf of customers who have suffered from lengthy power cuts to sue the delinquent power companies – SSE Networks and SP Energy Networks – for damages, for compensation to pay for back-up power solutions such as the installation and maintenance of the stand-by generators discussed in this blog post!
If enough money can be recovered from the power companies to pay for enough stand-by generators then eventually it will dawn on the power companies that the only way to stop losing money in lawsuits is to invest in the resilience of the electricity networks so that people don’t any longer suffer from power cuts and have no reason to sue.
Scottish Scientist 