EDF Energy, the British arm of the French electricity group, said Thursday that hot weather helped trigger four separate power cuts in central London and problems might linger until Friday.
The outages occurred over the past few days in the Carnaby Street and Soho area of the British capital — a place hugely popular with tourists and serviced by three key Underground stations: Piccadily Circus, Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road.
The most recent cut took place early Thursday.
"This problem has been exacerbated by the high demand caused by the continued high temperatures," EDF Energy, one of Britain's largest power companies, said in a statement.
As a result, customers in the area would suffer four-hour periods without power throughout the day and possibly into Friday, the firm said, while noting that it was working hard to correct the problem in the coming hours.
To ease the situation, EDF asked customers to use power prudently, such as by turning off air conditioning whenever possible.
About 760 people were currently without power, with two groups of 1,200 and 1,300 customers respectively likely to be affected later in the day, it said.
Temperatures in Britain hit a record high for July last week, with the mercury soaring to 36.5 degrees Celsius (97.7 Fahrenheit) at Wisley in the southeast of the country on July 19.
