ELECTRICITY North West has reassured residents that they will get the full amount of compensation they were promised following power cuts caused by Storm Arwen.

Some customers have been left confused after receiving the first instalment of compensation-set by Ofgem-but not the enhanced payment Electricity North West promised following the storm in November.

The grid has said the enhanced compensation requires a ‘thorough audit’ and it aims to have made all enhanced payments by the end of February.

It said it had already made 90 per cent of the nationally set payments.

The promise came after households experienced power cuts followed by short periods of power restoration.

Under Ofgem regulations people were entitled to a payment following a period of 48 hours without power and then an additional payment of £70 for each 12-hour period thereafter.

However, many people would not have been entitled to additional Ofgem set payments beyond the 48-hour payment where power came and went repeatedly, in some cases over a matter of days.

As a result, Electricity North West decided to make ‘voluntary enhanced payments’ to those affected where power was only restored intermittently.

A spokesman for Electricity North West said staff were continuing to make enhanced payments as ‘quickly as possible’ and apologised for the delay.

"Storm Arwen cut power to around a million properties in the UK including 93,000 in the North West with engineers restoring power to 90 per cent of properties in our region within 48 hours,” he said.

“Those who were off for longer are eligible for payments that are set nationally by the energy regulator, Ofgem, and we’ve now made more than 90 per cent of those payments.

“In addition, we are continuing to make enhanced voluntary payments as quickly as possible to people who were without power multiple times, over and above the standard.

“This process requires a thorough audit of all data available, and we apologise for any delay. We aim to make all payments by the end of February.”