The storms that hit on 26 December 2011 caused considerable damage to the power grids and exceptionally long outages for Fortum's customers. In addition, the storms are estimated to have cost Fortum a total of approximately EUR 35 million in Finland and EUR 10 million in Sweden. Fortum will pay its customers in Finland compensation of EUR 17 million and customers in Sweden compensation of EUR 6,4 million for the electricity outages. The amount of compensation depends on the length of the outage and is in accordance with the authorities' orders. In addition, Fortum has had to repair its power grid in many locations. The costs caused by the storm will be booked in the fourth quarter 2011 results of Fortum's Distribution businesses.
The 26 December storm, the strongest in 30 years in Finland, and the smaller storm on the following day caused major damage to Fortum's power grid mainly in southern, western and south-western Finland. At the worst, more than 190,000 Fortum customers were simultaneously without power. In addition to Finland, the storms also caused some power outages and damage also in Sweden.
During the first 24 hours following the storm, electricity was restored to 100,000 customers and during the second 24-hour period to 30,000 customers. Since then, electricity has been restored to more than 20,000 customers every day. Fortum has engaged all resources available for repairs, with as many as 750 people, including contractors, working on storm repairs. Repairing of the power grid can be done only by authorized and professional personnel.
On Wednesday, 4 January 2012, Fortum finished repairs of the medium-voltage grid damage that caused the most outages. Repairs of the low-voltage grid are ongoing in order to restore the electricity connections to the remaining 1,500 customers. Difficult weather conditions have slowed the repairs in some areas. Fortum's target is to restore electricity to all of its customers in permanent residential buildings on Friday, 6 January 2012, at the latest.
Fortum has more than 600,000 distribution customers in Finland and close to 900,000 distribution customers in Sweden.
For additional information, please contact:
Timo Karttinen, Executive Vice President, Electricity Solutions and Distribution Division, tel. +358 104 536 555
Fortum Corporation
Corporate Communications
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