Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, WPD has been working closely with Government, our regulator Ofgem and other electricity network operators to agree the vital services that must continue while identifying measures to minimise social interaction. The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Alok Sharma MP has spotlighted that during the COVID-19 pandemic, some essential maintenance and repair work on our energy network must continue to keep the power flowing and keep people safe. Energy networks have a vital role to play powering the UK’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak, including supplying energy to the UK’s hospitals, shops and food distribution centres.
In light of this role, and in accordance with Government guidelines, WPD is limiting our work to responding to power cuts and addressing key safety and network reliability issues. Our work will concentrate upon ensuring that everyone continues to receive a reliable energy supply. As a result, customers may still see some limited planned works taking place in their communities, but should be reassured that only work essential to keep their lights on is taking place. These works include:
- Power cuts – Recognising that many in our communities are in social isolation at home, we will continue to prioritise restoring power following emergency, unplanned power cuts as soon as possible.
- Vital inspections and maintenance – To reduce the possibility of power outages to communities in social isolation and businesses working from home, WPD will continue to carry out vital equipment inspections to quickly identify any safety issues, and essential maintenance – including tree cutting – to address these issues. We will avoid switching customers off in order to complete these works wherever possible.
- Street light faults – To keep communities safe and well lit, we will respond to any faults where there is a public safety issue.
- Critical connections – While the majority of our work connecting new generators and communities has been postponed and rearranged with our customers, WPD will still continue to support connections for key service providers, such as the new Nightingale Hospitals in Cardiff and Birmingham, existing hospitals and care facilities, vital broadband and telecommunications infrastructure, and food production and distribution.
While we are prioritising critical work, WPD has also implemented a range of safety protocols to keep our communities, vulnerable customers and team safe and healthy. All non-essential WPD staff are now working from home. Using a combination of remote working and in-office segregation systems, our Contact Centres and Control Rooms are continuing to operate fully so that we can continue to answer all emergency calls and remotely restore supplies wherever possible during power cuts. Where we need to deploy engineering teams to address a fault, we’ve hired additional vehicles to ensure that our response teams all travel separately to minimise unnecessary contact.
Meanwhile, we would be grateful for your support in reassuring your constituents that WPD is here for them during this testing time, while sharing up-to-date advice and information to communities in your area. I have included an infographics below for use on social media, which offers advice to your local constituents on how to report a power cut, what to do in case of a visit from a bogus caller and how to sign up to our priority services register. Also attached is a graphic which shows our week in review for last week, demonstrating how WPD is keeping the energy flowing throughout the network. We would be delighted if you could share the graphics in order to inform your constituents about the work that WPD is doing.
Last week, WPD launched our ‘In This Together’ - Community Matters Fund. The £500k fund intends to support communities affected by the COVID-19 outbreak within our network area, by helping local organisations to deliver vital support and services directly to people in vulnerable situations. The fund will offer financial support to enable key service partners to deliver vital support to people at this time, from food drop-offs to befriending services for those living alone in isolation. More information about the fund and application details, can be found here.
In addition, to help inform and educate your constituents during lockdown, we have our online Power Discovery Zone which has games, worksheets and videos to help teach children about electrical safety. The site has lots of resources for families to learn more aboutWPD and how to be responsible around electricity.
