54,000 homes across Hartlepool and East Durham hit by power cut says Northern Powergrid

Northern Powergrid, the electricity distribution network operator for the North East, said a total of 54,000 homes were affected by the blackout at around 3.30am on Friday, September 6.

The company said it was down to a fault with the National Grid’s network. The outage lasted no more than 16 minutes, but many residents were awoken by alarms.

A spokesperson for Northern Powergrid said: “At 3.28am on Friday 6 September there was a power cut, affecting around 54,000 customers in the East Durham and Hartlepool area. This was caused by a fault on National Grid’s electricity transmission network.

“We re-energised our section of the network and power was restored to over 16,000 customers within 11 minutes. All remaining customers were safely back on supply within 16 minutes (by 3.44am).

“Our team reacted swiftly and worked in partnership with National Grid to restore supplies.”