Third Jersey to France power cable 'expected by 2015'

Jersey Electricity hopes plans for a third cable between Jersey and France to supply power to the island would be approved this year.

Chris Ambler, the head of Jersey Electricity, said he was waiting on French planning authorities to approve the proposals.

He said he expected it to be running by 2015.

His comments come after Jersey experienced a major power failure on Sunday night.

There were problems with the submarine cables to France and local back-up generators had to be used.

Mr Ambler said engineers found the fault was a failure of sub-station equipment in France.

He said: "We cannot guarantee supplies all of the time.

"The nature of this technology - and this is widespread technology used all over the world - is such that occasionally equipment items fail, cables fail and we build in contingency to try and absorb that."