Power firms must ‘up their game’ after Storm Arwen failures, says Ofgem

Regulator berates network operators for unacceptable' time taken to restore power to thousands of homes

Power companies must up their game" after thousands of households in Britain faced appalling conditions" when they were left without power for more than a week after Storm Arwen hit last year, the industry watchdog has said.

Publishing its full report into the response of power distributors to the storm, Ofgem said they were underprepared and provided an unacceptable service" to customers, with nearly 1m homes losing power and 4,000 of those cut off for longer than a week.