Works to restore power to the Aran Islands are advancing today as Inis Meain and Inis Oirr remain without electricity.
A 22-tonne transformer has been transported to the island in a 20-foot container after being imported from the UK following the outage in the early hours of Friday morning.
Just under 400 residents on the two smaller Aran Islanders remain without power today as works continue to repair a damaged deep-sea cable.
The fault is about 2km from Inis Mór in deep water, where one of the three cores of the cable has been damaged.
A specialist ‘diving pod’, developed by ESB International, is being transported to the Islands and will facilitate underwater repair works which will take around 2 weeks.
It’ll be this evening at the earliest before islanders have access to generator power, which will be provided by two generators weighing 36 tonnes.
ESB spokesperson Bernadine Moloney says there’s a lot of work to be done this afternoon to get the generator running.
Meanwhile, Irish Water is urging residents of Inis Meain and Inis Oirr to continue to conserve water during the power outage.
The power cut caused a temporary shutdown of the islands’ water treatment plant – and crews are manually filling the reservoir until full power supply is restored.
The post Works advance on restoring power to Aran Islands appeared first on Connacht Tribune - Galway City Tribune.