Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) moved to Yellow Alert in the north of Scotland on 1 October 2025 ahead of Storm Amy, the first named storm of the autumn, and began extra preparations including additional field teams, extra control room engineers and increased contact centre staffing1.
SSEN said its own modelling for late evening on Friday and throughout Saturday predicted wind speeds in excess of 80mph for the Western and Northern Isles, along the length of Scotland's west coast, the northwest Highlands, Caithness, Moray and the Aberdeenshire coast, with gusts of 90mph likely in the most exposed areas1. The Met Office issued its own Amber Alert for much of Scotland for high winds2. SSEN said the storm's track had continually shifted over preceding days and the extent of areas likely to face damaging gusts had increased2.
"Storm Amy is set to be a disruptive autumn storm, and we've prepared accordingly, with extra teams ready to reconfigure the network, fix faults, and support our customers. Our enlarged teams will be working throughout the weekend to do everything we can to minimise disruption."
The network operator said hundreds of additional team members were standing by, planned network maintenance had been cancelled so repairs could be prioritised, and additional engineers were being sourced from its Scotland-based teams, colleagues from its central southern England network areas and contract partners2. Extra tree-cutting teams were also being brought in, with SSEN noting that trees still shedding leaves are at greater risk in storm-force winds2. Text messages were being sent to over 180,000 of its more vulnerable customers, with telephone calls to the most vulnerable people in areas expected to be worst hit2. SSEN said it was co-ordinating welfare checks and hot meal provision for communities facing extended outages2.
SSEN said customers are eligible for its Priority Services if they are deaf or hard of hearing, have a disability, live with children under five, are blind or partially-sighted, have a chronic illness, use medical equipment or aids reliant on electricity, or are over 601. It said all its priority services are free, and gave the contact number as 0800 294 32591. The emergency power cut number is 1051.
Why it matters for households
A Yellow Alert is SSEN's own assessment of a storm's potential impact and of the decisions it is taking before the storm arrives, rather than a weather warning1. For households in the affected areas, the practical consequence is a raised likelihood of losing supply, and of restoration taking longer than usual: SSEN said storm-force winds of this prolonged nature can pose challenges when fixing faults, because work at height can only go ahead when conditions are safe2. The predicted duration of dangerous winds may also affect the schedule of field work2. Where faults occur, SSEN said extra engineers in the control room can remotely reroute the network around them, which in many cases can be done quickly and mean briefer disruption2. Households that depend on electricity for medical equipment or aids, or that include someone over 60 or a child under five, fall within the Priority Services eligibility list1. SSEN's Power Track map carries fault progress and restoration times, and can also be used to report damage1. For wider context on how the north of Scotland's network is run and how storms are handled, see SSEN: Networks, Storms and Priority Services and Energy Supply in Scotland.
What happens next
SSEN said it would continue to monitor the weather forecast closely and issue further updates depending on the forecast1. It said it would get additional teams in position prior to the worst of the weather arriving where possible1. No restoration times or estimates of the number of properties that might lose supply have been reported.