Tauron restores power to all customers after floods, 12 hydropower plants remain offline

Listed power utility Tauron has restored energy supplies to all its customers in flooded areas. The group's 12 hydroelectric power plants that were affected by the floods are still offline, and it could take up to several months to restore them, Tauron group representatives said.

"At one point we had 108,000 customers without electricity. (...) Yesterday there were still 40 customers without supply, now there are zero," Tauron's CEO Grzegorz Lot told journalists in Katowice, during a meeting on the occasion of Energy Days and PRECOP.

"This does not mean the end of the problems because we had to introduce stopgaps, temporary solutions. We will work on target solutions," he added.

As Lot reported, 1,000 employees of the group were involved in restoring energy, also supported by teams from other distribution companies.

According to Tauron, more than 500 substations and over 223 low, medium and high voltage lines were damaged. The lighting network in more than 30 municipalities was damaged, and the optical fibre network was also affected.

Tauron Ekoenergia, which manages 34 hydropower plants, was directly affected by the floods.

"We have 12 hydropower plants that are flooded and further set aside. Clean-up is ongoing at these facilities. We will not be bringing them back online in the next few days," said the CEO of Tauron Ekoenergia Artur Kalicki.

"It will take long weeks, maybe months. We are in the process of taking stock of the losses. (...) At some sites we have only been able to enter the machinery hall for a few days," he added.

According to Kalicki, the company had already been emptying some reservoirs since September 9 in preparation for the arrival of the flood wave, and was in full contact with the crisis management centres and the regional branch of the Polish Waters during the flood period.

pel/ nl/ ao/