Island Energy boss: Odds of events which led to gas outage 'like winning the EuroMillions'
Jo Cox spoke to ITV News about the technical fault which left thousands of homes and businesses without gas
The CEO of Island Energy says the chance of an outage like the one which took Jersey's mains gas network offline for days is "like someone winning the EuroMillions".
Jo Cox - who oversees IEG's utility businesses in Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man - explained a major software glitch at the company's plant at La Collette was responsible for leaving thousands of homes and businesses without gas.
Jersey residents with mains gas-powered boilers, central heating, or cooking appliances were urged to turn off their gas supplies at the meter and wait for a visit from engineers.
ITV News understands Jersey's Council of Ministers came together on Sunday afternoon to discuss the ongoing disruption.
Ms Cox also met virtually with government officials to provide an update on the company's efforts to restore gas supplies island-wide.
Homes have been left without heating and hot water, while some restaurants have been unable to open without functioning kitchen facilities and others have had to adapt in order to continue trading.
Dominic Jones, who owns multiple Jersey restaurants including Crab Shack and Oyster Box, criticised Island Energy's apparent lack of urgency in resolving the issue.
In a post on the social network X, he said: "A much-needed sunny day for Jersey's hospitality industry and no gas in the island.
"If not addressed soon, [there] will be a significant issue for trading for the sector."
Jersey's government warned there was some "minor but manageable" disruption to one of its hospital wards, while the AquaSplash public swimming pool in St Helier will remain closed for several days due to a lack of water heating.
The energy company boss says Jersey's gas network is designed to be resilient should anything go wrong: "The rarity of this happening is like someone winning the EuroMillions.
"One control panel could fail and [the system] falls over to the next, and if that fails, it falls over to the next. All three failed at exactly the same time."
She added: "We did a check at our plant and noticed all systems had failed.
"[We] found a rogue code sitting in all of the control panels ... all three, because of the code, failed at exactly the same time and lost all power to the plant".
Ms Cox said that in the best-case scenario, if engineers do not have to visit every mains gas-supplied property on the island, most customers could be connected again by the end of Tuesday 10 October.
However, if there are any concerns about the safety of turning on multiple properties at once, they have said it could take up to eight days to visit affected sites individually.
In this case, extra staff will be brought over from Guernsey, the Isle of Man, and the UK.
She also apologised and said that the company's communication should have been better - after customers struggled to find out why their gas wasn't working:
"We started communicating much more regularly and effectively ... [but] our communications out of the gates should've been quicker."
Want to find out more about the stories making the headlines? Don't miss Channelcast - the Channel Islands current affairs podcast brought to you by ITV News: