Underground electricity fault in Old Headington area

There has been a series of power cuts over the recent past from the substation next to the garage in London Road through a fairly large area comprising St Andrew’s Rd, St Andrew’s Lane, Laurel Farm Close, Osler Road, Old High Street (and we would assume) Larkins Lane.

The Customer Relations adviser at SSE says there is an intermittent underground fault which could be caused by a number of factors including subsidence, or a knock to the plastic casing of a cable or joint which has induced seepage of water.

When the fault occurs, a safety fuse blows in the substation and has to be replaced. SSE has put in some software to monitor this in the substation – it’s called a Kelvatek “bidoyng” and for those of you dying to know what that is, please click here (thanks to Alexandra for the link)

Apparently it detects a blown fuse, replaces it and also does a search of nearby lines to try and track exactly where the fault is happening. They have also carried out back feeding to try and identify the source. They have ruled out overloading though.

If we get any more details we will post them here. There is currently no guarantee that another power cut won’t happen again but it should be rectified much more quickly – SSE Community Officers have been out door knocking to give advice to their customers.

 

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