Beaver disrupts power supply for 58 customers in Grane, Norway

In a surprising turn of events, nature took an active role in clearing trees around power lines in Grane municipality, Helgeland, leading to an unexpected disruption for 58 electricity customers on Monday afternoon. Despite the recent pleasant weather providing no visible signs of trouble in the power grid, energy company Linea AS had to respond quickly when issues arose.

Technicians Ole Kristiansen and Kenneth Myrnes were dispatched to investigate the cause of the outage. They discovered that a large birch tree had fallen onto the power line, and the culprit behind this peculiar situation? A beaver.

Upon arrival, the technicians noted several other trees nearing collapse around the line. Kristiansen, with 23 years of experience in the field, expressed surprise at the incident. “I’ve seen beavers working on trees in the area, but never one that caused a line disruption,” he remarked.

Despite the beaver’s intentions to maintain the environment, the technicians faced additional tasks as they had to remove around six or seven large birch trees, all of which showed clear signs of beaver activity.

Power was restored to the affected households in nearly four hours. Linea AS emphasized their commitment to keeping power line routes free from vegetation and acknowledged the beaver’s “helping hand,” although it resulted in extra work for the crew. They expressed a desire to continue collaborating with nature and hope for better coordination in future encounters.