Over 100 electricity meters were destroyed

Mývatn Lake.

Mývatn Lake. mbl.is/RAX

Rarik must replace over 100 electricity meters damaged in last week's widespread power outages.

These are sales meters that sometimes have just been replaced with smart meters.

Almost all the meters are in people's homes in Mývatnsveit, where there was a major interruption in voltage. There was no tripping, which caused the shock from the system to go all the way to the customers.

"When the sales meter doesn't work, you can't charge for electricity use," says Guðrún Vaka Helgadóttir, an expert in the field of communication and social affairs at Rarik.

About 170 reports have been received by Rarik regarding damage to various devices due to the power outages.

Rarik encourages its customers who are in Rarik's distribution area to collect the damage with the help of professionals before sending them a notification.

Photo/Landsnet

"Impossible to be without a fridge"

Helgadóttir says that more effort will be put into processing the requests that are received, as Rarik understands that people want to know as soon as possible if and how they can get their damage compensated.

"It is impossible to be without a fridge and washing machine for a long time," she mentions. "Not everyone has the money to go to the store and buy a new one and then wait for compensation."

When asked, she says that Rarik works very closely with the carrier Landsnet for damage reports, but Rarik is the distributor and intermediary for the customer. She adds that the responsibility probably lies entirely with Landsnet because the disruption occurred in their systems.

Claims to insurance companies this week

"We will try to get these [claims] to the insurance companies this week." We are working on this as fast as we can. It's a real priority for us to get this going."

She says she does not have information on the total damage due to the power outages but speaks of "major damage" in that context. She also does not have information on how many people suffered tens of millions of ISK in damages as a result of what happened.

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