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Power cuts experieneced in the Island over the past 10 years

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WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND RESOURCES BY CONNÉTABLE OF ST JOHN

ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 26th JUNE 2012

Question

Would the Minister,as the representative of the shareholder, provide a detailed breakdown of the numbers of power cuts which have occurred in the Island over the last 10 years, indicating the dates and whether they affected the whole Island, specific Parishes, districts or areas; the duration of each power cut, and the cause of each one?

Answer

Jersey Electricity, as a plc listed on London Stock Exchange, reports on security of supply performance in an audited Annual Report each year. The simplest, and main industry recognised, method of  comparing  electricity  supply  reliability  is  by  monitoring Customer  Minutes Lost (CML's). This measures the average number of minutes in each year that a customer's supply has been interrupted and is seen as the most meaningful Industry measure. The table below shows the comparative performance of Jersey Electricity over the last 10 years, against the UK and similar island jurisdictions. As can be seen, the performance in Jersey is favourable compared to other regions and supply security is, on average, among the best in Europe.

 

CML's 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Average

Jersey Electricity 10 27 12 11 39 58 5 9 10 45 Gurnsey Electricity 34 68 53 15 12 34 37 19 23 10 Manx Electricity 29 87 87 21 21 21 17 10 24 12 UK

23 31 33 80

In response to the Connétable 's question, information on the number of systems faults is also monitored by JEC. However this is not held at the level of detail asked for. A summary of the System faults over the last 10 years are as follows:-

 

System Faults (Jersey)

Financial Year

02/03

03/04

04/05

05/06

06/07

07/08

08/09

09/10

10/11

High Voltage

14

5

8

8

12

2

5

2

6

Low Voltage

121

114

89

91

90

74

70

77

81

Totals

135

119

97

99

102

76

75

79

87

The following table shows that a fair proportion are outside of JEC's control, caused by third party damage faults (e.g. a developer cutting through a power line).

 

Third Party Damage Faults ( Jersey)

Financial Year

02/03

03/04

04/05

05/06

06/07

07/08

08/09

09/10

10/11

High Voltage

5

3

3

2

3

0

1

0

1

Low Voltage

27

34

31

41

35

25

27

28

26

Totals

32

37

34

43

38

25

28

28

27

It is not possible to provide a breakdown by Parish, District or area.