Electricity firm in dark over cause of embarrassing Portsmouth...

Following the humiliating power outage at Fratton Park on Wednesday night, an electricity supplier has denied any

responsibility on its part, stating that it is still unaware of the reason of the mysterious blowout.

Portsmouth’s match with Millwall was dramatically called off after the stadium was thrown into darkness minutes

before the 7.45pm kick-off after an outage at a nearby substation monitored by Scottish and Southern Electricity

Networks (SSEN).

Chief executive Andy Cullen told The News the cause of the shortage had nothing to do with the revamped Fan Zone.

He also denied the game was abandoned after Sky Sports cameras were unable to reactivate following the initial power cut.

“Having spoken to Southern Electric, that’s where we understand the problem took place. We now need to

understand why that trip took place, whether it was anything to do with the football club or elsewhere. It’s too early

to speculate what that might be.

“We don’t even have access to it. Although we do have an additional substation panel outdoors, it wasn’t the issue.

Should it have been, we could have taken action far more quickly and effectively.

Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) has now reacted, denying any responsibility on its part and

expressing the hope that an investigation will clarify the unexplained outage. “We were notified of an outage

affecting Fratton Park stadium at 7.50pm on Wednesday evening,” a business spokeswoman stated. The stadium’s

supplies were restored at 8:50 p.m. after our rapid response crew arrived right away.

The interruption was caused by a circuit breaker that tripped at the stadium’s substation; this is meant to guard

against other problems in the larger network. There is currently nothing to suggest a problem with the larger

network, so we are collaborating with customers, including Portsmouth Football Club, to determine what caused the

circuit breaker to trip.

“We want to express our gratitude to everyone in the Fratton Park area for their patience last night as we attempted

to address this issue in a safe and timely manner.”

Electricity firm in dark over cause of embarrassing Portsmouth v Millwall power outage – and denies blame