More than 20,000 customers across the island lost power after a major transmission fault at Belco yesterday.

Residents reported outages in every parish from about 10am, but service was fully restored by noon.

A Belco spokesman said that at the height of the outages 20,269 customers were without power.

The spokesman said that the outages were linked to a switchboard fault and not the result of ongoing work taking place at Belco.

He added: “It was an isolated incident.”

The Warwick Academy was among the buildings to lose power for about 45 minutes on the first day of the school term, as did the new building at Somersfield Academy.

The spokesman added: “We know that outages are inconvenient and we thank everyone in advance for their patience.”