SSEN Distribution’s control room has recently been hosting visits from resilience partners across Aberdeenshire and Moray, providing a firsthand, in-depth, view of life in the company’s nerve centre where teams work 24/7 to keep the power flowing for over 780,000 homes and businesses across the north of Scotland.

Local Resilience Partnerships (LRP) play a key role in the community when there is an emergency - for example in last winter’s storms - with emergency services, local authorities, health boards and utilities all working together to provide support. By pooling their wide range of expertise and local knowledge, these partnerships are in the best possible position to support the local communities when they need it most.

With last winter seeing the northeast of Scotland experiencing some of the worst storms in living memory, Grampian LRP worked hand-in-hand with SSEN Distribution to support communities where the power was off; this recent series of series of guided tours was designed to not only give the GLRP a look behind the scenes at the control room, the visits also helped to build on existing relationships and discuss the work that has been going on ahead of this coming winter.

Shona Horn, SSEN’s Customer Relationship Manager for the North Caledonia region, said: 

“We’ve really enjoyed welcoming our resilience partners to the control room and customer contact centre. The feedback so far has been fantastic, with partners including Aberdeenshire Council and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service coming away with a greater understanding of how we manage the network, our strategy to restore power to customers and how we support those most vulnerable across our communities during a storm. 

“Building on existing relationships with our partners is critical to ensure we can work collectively to support our customers and communities when they need us most. And our work doesn’t stop here, we’re continuing to develop our strategies for personal, household and community resilience, with a commitment to supporting partner initiatives this coming winter and beyond.” 

Click on the image above to see what Neil Cameron, Emergency Planning Officer at Aberdeenshire Council, thought about the visit.