TOWN centre shops had to close early yesterday when they were affected by a power cut.
Several businesses in Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland, were affected by the blackout yesterday afternoon.
Most of the properties were plunged into darkness at about 4pm, although a handful of customers were affected from just before 1pm.
Les Appleton, customer operations manager for electricity suppliers NEDL, said: "We have got an underground cable fault in Newgate Street, in Bishop Auckland.
"While our engineers were investigating they found smoke in a sub-station, which was an overloaded transformer."
The fault was isolated and 177 customers were affected in total.
Engineers arranged for a generator to be transferred to the station and supply was restored at about 9pm.
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