Galway Bay fm newsroom – The ESB says that it’s unlikely that generator power will be established on the Aran Islands of Inis Meáin and Inis Oirr until Monday evening.
Crews have located the cable fault responsible for the ongoing outage since yesterday morning – and it’s understood that the repair is a major undertaking that will take a significant amount of time to complete.
The lights went out on Inis Meáin and Inis Oirr at 4.30am yesterday, and it’s looking like generator power will not be in place until Monday evening – leaving island residents facing the prospect of almost four days without power.
The first batch of generator equipment left Rossaveal for Inish Oirr this morning at 5am, however, there are fears that poor weather forecast for tomorrow will hamper efforts to deliver the full complement.
It had been previously hoped that generators would be in place this weekend, but the ESB is now estimating that it will be Monday evening before generators to power the islands are up and running.
Late yesterday evening, crews located a cable fault in the 9km submarine cable that runs from Inish Mór to Inis Meáin.
The fault was detected about 2km from Inish Mór in deep water – and the ESB says remedying the situation is a major undertaking.
Such faults are uncommon due to the reinforced nature of undersea cables, and the repair operation will require the use of a specialist barge to bring the heavy duty cable to the surface for repair.
An ESB spokesperson says the duration of the works are not yet known, but that they will take ‘a lot longer’ than the installation of generators on Monday.