A dog has been trained to sniff out faults in power infrastructure to reduce the risk of power cuts this winter.

SP Energy Networks has been using a specially-trained detection dog to find “network issues” that could lead to outages.

The company said the springer spaniel, named Jack, successfully found the location under the asphalt of an artificial fault at one of the company’s sites.

The dog also used his nose to point to another fault it had not been expected to find.

The scheme forms part of the energy company’s effort to boost the protection of its assets against storms and other severe weather conditions that can create potential power cuts.

Scott Mathieson, Network Planning and Regulation Director at SP Energy Networks, said: “It’s important we explore every avenue to either prevent the unplanned outages weather can bring or to make sure that, if they do occur, we can restore power to people’s homes and businesses as quickly and as safely as possible.”