Minister demands answers from NIE following power cuts

Enterprise Minister, Ian Pearson has been in direct contact with NIE following last night's power cuts across Northern Ireland.

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses across the province were disconnected as NIE attempted to deal with a major power shortage due to "operational difficulties" at both Kilroot and Ballylumford power stations.

Mr Pearson said he had been in direct contact with Managing Director of NIE, Harry McCracken who had assured him that last night's incident was an extremely rare occurrence which would be thoroughly investigated.

He asked for a report on the matter to be passed to him as soon as possible.

Thursday night's power failures affected areas as far apart as north Belfast, Banbridge, Newcastle, Newtownabbey, Downpatrick and Newry.

Because of the 25% drop in available generation cacacity, NIE had to implement an emergency action plan to stabilised the available supplies. Under the rotating system, some towns would be cut off at certain times, as power was redistributed to ensure that no one location was cut off for a prolonged period.

(MB)