Power has been restored to thousands of homes and businesses across Inverness following a fire at a substation.
Firefighters tackled the blaze on Waterloo Place for three hours after the alarm was raised at 3.30am.
The incident resulted in a major power cut across the city, causing a blackout to 2,800 properties in both the IV1 and IV2 postcode areas.
The vaccination centre in the Eastgate Centre, the Castle Street Service Point and the Museum were forced to close due to the lack of power.
Proceedings at the Inverness Justice Centre also suffered a delayed start.
Council officials confirmed both the city’s Eastgate Centre and Justice Centre returned to business as usual, while work to restore the network was carried out.
Engineers worked around the clock to get the affected properties and the network back up and running.
By 8am, power had been restored to 2,600 properties as engineers re-routed the network.
Officials confirmed that all of the customers whose power was interrupted by this morning’s fault are now back on supply.
The final properties were restored at 7:05pm.
SSE said a total of 17 postcodes had been impacted by the fault, with only 63 customers without electricity.
Fire on Waterloo Place
SSEN was in attendance at the fire and isolated electricity in the building.
A fire service spokeswoman said: “We received a call at 3.30am this morning to a fire in a one-storey property on Waterloo Place in Inverness.
“Two appliances from Inverness were in attendance at the single-storey building that was on fire.”
The flames were extinguished by 6.05am and the teams left half an hour later.
Power cut in Inverness
The Inverness Vaccination Centre was also shut to patients today due to a power cut in the main Eastgate Centre.
All vaccination appointments scheduled to take place today will be rescheduled for a later date.
P&J sports reporter Paul Chalk, from Inverness, said: “It has put power out at various points.
“Morrisons was closed when I went there at 7.30am and the lotto machine at Co-op in Church Street is out of action, as well as street lighting in the Longman Industrial Estate earlier.”
An SSEN distribution spokesman apologised, he said: “We would like to apologise to our customers impacted by this fault on our network, and thank them for their patience as our teams worked hard to restore supplies as safely and as quickly as possible.”
