NEW YORK, Jan 1, 2026, 04:12 ET
- Repeated power trips hit Edinburgh’s Grassmarket as venues prepared for Hogmanay, operators and the local network firm said.
- Hospitality operators said outages have disrupted peak festive trading and risk further losses on one of the year’s biggest nights.
- SP Energy Networks said it was working to fix an intermittent fault and would have extra staff on standby.
Hospitality businesses in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket warned that repeated power outages in the Old Town risked disrupting Hogmanay celebrations, after electricity supply tripped again on Dec. 31, operators and the local network company said.
The concern comes as Edinburgh relies on New Year’s Eve trade tied to Hogmanay, Scotland’s traditional year-end celebration that draws crowds to the city centre and packs pubs and restaurants.
For operators, even short outages can force closures because fridges, lighting, kitchens and card machines stop working, turning busy service into lost bookings and wasted stock.
Some businesses lost power on Dec. 30 in Edinburgh’s Old Town, which SP Energy Networks said was caused by an “intermittent fault,” followed by a further “power trip” on the morning of Dec. 31.
SP Energy Networks said customers were without supply for about an hour between roughly 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Dec. 30, and again from about 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., after low-voltage protection fuses operated.
Low-voltage protection fuses are safety devices that cut power when they detect a fault or overload, helping prevent equipment damage but also causing an outage for customers.
Earlier in December, a separate power cut was traced to a low-voltage cable joint failure near Kings Stables Road Lane, with electricity temporarily restored using alternative feeds while engineers investigated, the report said.
Outages were also reported in December 2022 and again in 2024 and 2025, involving both low- and high-voltage cable faults that affected many customers, it said.
Louise MacLean, business development director at Signature Group, said the repeated interruptions during the festive season had left venues “in the dark” and the underlying issue “unresolved.”
“In one December weekend alone,” MacLean said, venues lost an entire Friday night service and a Saturday lunch service, costing “thousands of pounds” in revenue, while staff wages and other costs still had to be paid.
A spokesperson for Grassmarket Hospitality Operators said around 30 restaurants and bars had been “crippled” by the disruption to Christmas trade, according to the report.
The group said it had alerted Paul Lawrence, chief executive of the City of Edinburgh Council, and Scottish culture secretary Angus Robertson, and asked SP Energy Networks to publish a timetable for reinforcing or upgrading infrastructure and set out contingency measures for future winters.
One engineer attending the latest incident reportedly told businesses that the local substation was too small to meet demand, the report said.
SP Energy Networks said it was “doing our utmost” to resolve the intermittent supply issues ahead of the celebrations, apologising for the disruption and saying staff were going door-to-door to reassure customers.
The company said it would have additional staff on standby through the bells and into the early hours and was willing to meet affected groups in the new year to discuss investment plans to strengthen the network. A separate report also described venues warning of “thousands of pounds” in losses after repeated outages in the area. https://www.upday.com/uk/uknews/hours-befo…
