About 87,000 households still without power after storm; drones to speed up damage inspection
Days after a powerful storm hit Latvia, around 87,000 households remain without electricity, though repairs are progressing rapidly. Grid operators are now deploying drones to locate damage faster.
Repair work continues at an accelerated pace following the destructive storm that struck Latvia overnight into Sunday, August 23. According to grid operator Sadales tīkls, power had been restored to about 190,000 customers, or 70% of those affected, by Monday morning. More than 300 faults in the distribution network have been fixed, but roughly 87,000 households remain without electricity.
More than 200 Sadales tīkls crews are working on repairs, assisted by seven teams from Estonia's grid operator Elektrilevi. Because restoring the medium-voltage network first requires fixing damage on main transmission lines, some crews had been working alongside specialists from transmission operator Augstsprieguma tīkls (AST). On Monday, the main priority is restoring voltage across all medium-voltage lines.
Drones to be used for damage inspection
As weather conditions improve, both Sadales tīkls and its Estonian partners are starting to use drones today to survey storm damage on power lines. This is expected to significantly speed up the identification of fault locations. Residents are asked to be understanding about drone use during inspection work.
The worst-affected areas currently include the Rēzekne, Preiļi, Ogre, Sigulda, Jēkabpils, Bauska, Aizkraukle, Krāslava, Jelgava, Ludza, Kandava and Madona municipalities. In heavily forested areas, full restoration could take several more days.
AST restores most substations
By Monday morning, AST had restored voltage to nearly 80% of substations left without power due to the storm, prioritizing those serving large cities. Currently only 10 substations, or 6.4% of the total transmission network, remain without power. The storm caused damage to nearly 50 transmission lines and more than 40 substations in total, requiring inspection of over 1,500 kilometers of overhead lines to locate faults.
Residents can track outages via the digital map on www.sadalestikls.lv and report new faults with photos through the website. Dangerous situations, such as a downed power line, should be reported to the free hotline 8404 or to the State Fire and Rescue Service at 112.
