About 31,000 households still without power after storm

More than two days after the strongest summer storm in recent decades hit Latvia on Saturday and into Sunday night, with gusts locally exceeding 30 meters per second, power restoration work is still underway. According to grid operator Sadales tīkls, by Monday morning electricity had been restored to about 250,000 customers — roughly 90% of those who lost power in the storm. Initially around 277,000 customers were left without electricity.

Crews have already fixed 700 storm-related faults in the distribution network, but work continues at an intensified pace to restore power to the remaining approximately 31,000 customers. On Monday evening, electricity was restored in Preiļi town and to about half of customers in Preiļi municipality. The most significant outages remain in Ogre and Ogre municipality, as well as in Aizkraukle, Rēzekne, Jēkabpils and Bauska municipalities.

Scale and complexity of the work

In many places large trees have fallen onto power lines, wires have been torn down or poles broken, meaning repair crews must both diagnose faults and carry out physical repairs. More than 200 Sadales tīkls crews are involved in the repair effort, including teams from Estonia's grid operator Elektrilevi. Drone surveys of storm damage will continue on Tuesday, significantly speeding up the identification of fault locations along power lines.

Transmission network situation

On Monday evening, transmission operator Augstsprieguma tīkls (AST) restored voltage to nearly all substations that had lost it. Only one substation still lacks power via the 110-kilovolt high-voltage network, as damage there proved more extensive than initially expected; however, a 20-kilovolt network is operating there, allowing repair work to continue on medium- and low-voltage lines. Damage to the transmission network was recorded in nearly 50 lines and more than 40 substations, requiring inspection of over 1,500 kilometers of overhead lines in total.

Residents are urged to check the outage map at www.sadalestikls.lv and report any unregistered faults, as well as call 8404 or emergency number 112 for hazardous situations.