Issued: 8:15 a.m., Friday, 24th January 2025

Extreme and destructive winds from Storm Éowyn have caused unprecedented damage to Ireland’s electricity infrastructure. As of 8:00 a.m., over 715,000 homes, farms, and businesses are without power, with numbers expected to rise as the storm continues its path across the country.

Met Éireann’s Status Red and Orange wind warnings remain in effect nationwide until later this afternoon. With severe winds persisting, ESB Networks has warned of further outages and stated that power restoration could take several days due to the extensive and widespread damage.

Public Safety Warning

The public is urged to exercise extreme caution around damaged electricity networks.

ESB Networks Statement:

“If you come across fallen wires or damaged electricity networks, never, ever touch or approach these as they are LIVE and extremely dangerous. Please report any damage to electricity infrastructure immediately by calling 1800 372 999.”

Restoration Efforts Underway

ESB Networks crews and partner contractors will begin network assessments and repairs as soon as it is safe to do so.

From their experience in past severe weather events, ESB Networks anticipates that restoration efforts will follow these steps:

1. Making the Network Safe: Crews will prioritise ensuring public safety by addressing fallen wires and other dangerous damage.
2. Remote Restoration: Where possible, power will be restored remotely via the National Distribution Control Centre.
3. Assessing Damage: Technicians will conduct detailed inspections of damaged infrastructure to enable systematic and safe repairs.
4. Prioritising Large Outages: Initial repairs will focus on high-voltage transmission and medium-voltage distribution lines to restore power to the largest number of customers.
5. Addressing Local Networks: Low-voltage repairs for individual homes and small clusters of customers will follow, but these are typically time-consuming due to smaller, isolated faults.

Given the extent of the damage, estimated restoration times (ERTs) will not be available until full network assessments have been conducted. These updates will be made available from Saturday via the ESB Networks PowerCheck website, www.PowerCheck.ie.

Customer Support

ESB Networks’ Customer Contact Centre will be available throughout Storm Éowyn. However, agents will not have specific outage information until the network has been fully assessed.