Cock-up beats conspiracy most of the time, but that didn't stop Orkney residents wondering if a Russian warship caused their two-hour power cut.

The lights went out across Orkney and part of Caithness for two hours from 1910 UTC on Wednesday, November 19. With no immediate explanation, locals filled the gap with their own notions.

UK eyes new laws as cable sabotage blurs line between war and peace [1]READ MORE

"There are various theories connecting the power (and phone) outage with the presence of Russian intelligence-gathering vessels in the area," one local told us, expressing a fear that has some merit.

The timing was suspiciously cinematic. That same day, the Ministry of Defence held a press conference warning that [2]Russian spy vessel Yantar was suspected of mapping subsea cables north of Scotland.

Alistair Carmichael, MP for Orkney and Shetland, wrote to Defence Secretary John Healey seeking answers. He noted this wasn't Yantar's first visit – the Nikolay Chiker had prowled around Shetland's subsea infrastructure in 2023, raising "significant local security concerns."

[3]

"While the disruption we have faced to date is believed to be due to accidents or storm damage, I am sure you can appreciate why the operations of a Russian vessel around the subsea cables in our waters would be of local interest," Carmichael wrote.

[4]Submarine cable security is all at sea, and UK govt 'too timid' to act, says report

[5]Power cuts, cable damage, and government shutdowns behind Q2 internet outages

[6]The race to shore up Europe's power grids against cyberattacks and sabotage

[7]FCC dives in to sink Chinese grip on undersea internet cables

But Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) delivered a [8]far less exotic explanation to local paper The Orcadian : a fault at a Caithness wind farm.

The culprit was a network protection system that "did not operate as expected" when a fault occurred near a substation, causing a wider outage. SSEN has taken steps to prevent a repeat and insisted it has "no ongoing concerns regarding network security."

[9]

So there you have it. No Putinland spies – just boring grid malfunction. Unless, of course, SSEN has been infiltrated...

The truth is out there, and it's typically very dull. ®

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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/02/uk_cable_sabotage_law/

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c997vm74ydvo

[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2aSXgq22OehbTn8EZkAU57AAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/09/29/submarine_cable_security_report_uk/

[5] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/23/governments_power_cuts_cable_damage/

[6] https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/03/europe_power_grid_security/

[7] https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/17/fcc_china_subsea_cables/

[8] https://orcadian.co.uk/caithness-windfarm-fault-behind-orkney-blackout-confirm-ssen/

[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44aSXgq22OehbTn8EZkAU57AAAAIw&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/