Power outage throughout Orkney

The county has faced a county-wide power outage tonight, Wednesday, with the cause reported to be a  transmission line fault on the Scottish mainland.

The outage, which occured just after 8:40pm, affected the majority of northern Scotland, with Kirkwall one of the earliest areas to see power restored north of Beauly.

Orkney manager for Scottish Hydro Electric, Stevie Burns, reported just before midnight that the transmission grid connections on the Scottish mainland had been re-established and that power was beginning to be restored to the other areas of Orkney, with it hoped that most areas in the county would see power fully restored by 1am on Thursday morning.

Mr Burns also said that the cause of the original fault remains unclear.