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Power outage map: check outages near you in Australia
This live power outage map shows current outages reported across Australia. Enter your address to recentre it on your suburb, see whether a power outage has been reported in your area, and report your own so neighbours are warned. For a fallen line or danger to life, call 000 first.
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Current power outage reports
No active power outages are currently reported by users in Australia. If your power is out, use the address check above to report it.
Add to the map
Report a power outage
Reporting is anonymous, appears straight away on the map above, and helps others in your area, especially where there are vulnerable customers or medical equipment that depends on electricity. It does not replace calling your distributor: to protect your right to a GSL credit, the official report to your network still matters.
Thanks, your report has been submitted and will help others in your area.
Reports are submitted anonymously and let other users know about power outages in progress. For a fallen line or danger to life, call 000 first.
The short answer
During a power outage, contact your distributor, not your retailer
When the lights go out, the first questions are always the same: is this just my place, is there a power outage near me, and who do I call? This page answers all three. Use the live power outage map below to see current reports across Australia, check your address to find outages in your area, and report your own to warn neighbours. Then, the part most people get wrong: in a blackout you call your distributor, the company that owns the poles and wires for your address, not the retailer on your bill. If a powerline is down or anyone is in danger, call Triple Zero (000) first.
Here is the core takeaway in one line: during a power outage in Australia you should report the fault to your distribution network (DNSP), the poles-and-wires company for your address, because your retailer sells you electricity but does not run the grid and cannot restore your supply. Your distributor faults line is printed on your bill, runs 24 hours a day, and is the only number that gets a crew dispatched. The one exception sits above everything else: if a powerline is down, or anyone is in danger, call Triple Zero (000) before you do anything else.
Life-safety first
For a fallen powerline, sparks, smoke, or any threat to life, call Triple Zero (000) immediately, then your distributor. Treat every fallen line as live. Stay at least 8 metres away (about a bus length), keep children and pets back, and never touch a line or anything it is touching, including fences, trees, water or a vehicle.
Who to call by state
Distributor faults numbers, state by state
These are the network faults lines, not retailer numbers. Confirm yours on your latest bill, because a state can have several networks split by region. For a fallen line or danger to life, call 000 first.
| Distributor | Service area | Faults line |
|---|---|---|
| NSW · New South Wales | ||
| Ausgrid | Inner, northern and eastern metropolitan Sydney, Central Coast and Hunter | 13 13 88 |
| Endeavour Energy | Southern and western Sydney, Blue Mountains, Illawarra | 13 10 03 |
| Essential Energy | Country and regional NSW | 13 20 80 |
| VIC · Victoria | ||
| CitiPower | Melbourne CBD and inner suburbs | 13 12 80 |
| Powercor | Western suburbs and western Victoria | 13 24 12 |
| Jemena | Northern and north-western Melbourne | 13 16 26 |
| United Energy | Southern and south-eastern Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula | 13 20 99 |
| AusNet Services | Outer north and east Melbourne and eastern Victoria | 13 17 99 |
| QLD · Queensland | ||
| Energex | South-east Queensland (Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast). Faults line, emergencies 13 19 62 | 13 62 62 |
| Ergon Energy | Regional and rural Queensland | 13 22 96 |
| SA · South Australia | ||
| SA Power Networks | All of South Australia | 13 13 66 |
| TAS · Tasmania | ||
| TasNetworks | All of Tasmania | 13 20 04 |
| ACT · ACT | ||
| Evoenergy | All of the ACT | 13 19 09 |
| WA · Western Australia | ||
| Western Power | South West Interconnected System (Perth and the south-west) | 13 13 51 |
| NT · Northern Territory | ||
| Power and Water | Northern Territory (emergency line) | 1800 245 090 |
In Western Australia, Synergy sells your power but Western Power runs the network and the faults line. In the Northern Territory, Power and Water owns the network. Neither has retail competition, so there is no provider to switch in an outage; you still call the network.
By location
Power outages by state and city
Each state page has its own live outage map, the right faults numbers and local causes. Jump straight to your state or city below.
- Sydney power outage
- Newcastle power outage
- Central Coast power outage
- Wollongong power outage
- Maitland power outage
- Tamworth power outage
- Orange power outage
- Dubbo power outage
- Coffs Harbour power outage
- Bathurst power outage
- Port Macquarie power outage
- Lismore power outage
- Wagga Wagga power outage
- Albury power outage
- Brisbane power outage
- Gold Coast power outage
- Sunshine Coast power outage
- Townsville power outage
- Cairns power outage
- Toowoomba power outage
- Mackay power outage
- Ipswich power outage
- Caboolture power outage
- Redcliffe power outage
- Bribie Island power outage
- Hervey Bay power outage
- Gympie power outage
- Bundaberg power outage
- Rockhampton power outage
- Gladstone power outage
- Mount Isa power outage
- Maryborough power outage
- Innisfail power outage
- Atherton power outage
- Warwick power outage
- Stanthorpe power outage
- Emerald power outage
- Roma power outage
- Perth power outage
- Mandurah power outage
- Bunbury power outage
- Busselton power outage
- Margaret River power outage
- Geraldton power outage
- Kalgoorlie power outage
- Albany power outage
- Yanchep power outage
- Forrestfield power outage
- Australind power outage
- Bullsbrook power outage
- Rockingham power outage
- Armadale power outage
- Joondalup power outage
- Fremantle power outage
- Midland power outage
The blind spot
Why ringing your retailer wastes the worst minutes
The instinct in a blackout is to grab the bill and call the brand printed on it. That brand is your retailer, and in an outage it is the wrong number for a simple structural reason.
Australia split the electricity supply chain years ago. The retailer buys wholesale power and sells it to you, sets your plan, and sends the bill. It owns no infrastructure on your street. The distributor, also called a distribution network service provider or DNSP, owns and maintains the poles, wires, transformers and substations that physically deliver power to your meter. When the lights go out, the problem is almost always on the network, which means only the distributor can fix it.
Ring the retailer and the best it can do is read you the distributor number you already have on your bill. Worse, the call centre may be in a different state and slower to pick up during a widespread event. The faster move is to go straight to your distributor, which has a dedicated 24/7 faults line, an outage map, and crews on the ground.
There is one more myth worth killing: a blackout is not always an outage. If your neighbours have power and your street is lit, the fault is inside your own property, usually a tripped safety switch. We cover how to tell the difference below, because calling a faults line for your own switchboard fault only delays the real fix.
How outages actually work
Expert analysis: networks, planned outages and restoration
The distributor is a regional monopoly, by design
You can choose your retailer in most states, but you cannot choose your distributor. It is a regulated monopoly tied to your geography: Ausgrid, Energex, SA Power Networks and the rest each own a defined network area. That is why the faults number depends on where you live, not on who you pay. It is also why network reliability, the number and length of the outages you experience, is set by your address, not your plan.
Planned versus unplanned: one comes with a letter
A planned outage is scheduled maintenance or an upgrade, and the rules require your distributor to give you advance notice, typically a few days ahead by letter, SMS or email. If your power is off and you were warned, that is why, and the network already knows. An unplanned outage is a fault with no warning: storms, lightning, fallen trees, a car into a pole, or equipment failure. Unplanned outages are the ones to report, because the network may not yet know your specific street is affected.
How restoration is really prioritised
During a widespread storm event, crews do not work in the order people called. Restoration is prioritised by network safety and the number of customers affected: making fallen lines safe comes first, then repairs that bring back the most homes at once, such as a substation or a main feeder, before single-property faults. So calling ten times will not move you up the queue. Reporting once, accurately, with any detail you saw (a loud bang, a flash, a tree on a line) genuinely helps, because it tells crews where to look.
If you rely on life support, you are on a register
If someone in your home depends on equipment like a ventilator, dialysis machine or oxygen concentrator, you can register as a life-support customer with your retailer, who notifies your distributor. Registered customers must be given advance notice of planned outages and are flagged in the network systems. Registration does not guarantee power during an unplanned fault, so a registered household still needs a backup plan, but it does change how and when the network communicates with you.
The insider insight
You may be owed an automatic credit, and never know it
Here is the part most households miss entirely. Under the Guaranteed Service Level (GSL) scheme, your distributor must pay you a set amount if your supply falls short of agreed reliability standards over a financial year. It covers things like total hours without power, the number of separate interruptions, and how long it took to restore supply after a fault.
The non-obvious Australian truth: GSL payments are usually automatic. You do not lodge a claim. When your outages cross the threshold, the distributor pays the amount as a credit on your electricity bill, passed through your retailer. Because it lands quietly as a line on a bill, most customers who are owed it never realise it arrived, and those just under the threshold never know how close they were. Ausgrid, for example, sets its threshold around 20 total hours of interruptions or 10 separate interruptions in a year; SA Power Networks pays when a customer has more than 9 outages or more than 20 hours off supply in a year. The exact thresholds and dollar amounts differ by distributor.
The practical move: if you have had a rough year of outages, do not assume nothing is owed. Check your bills for a GSL or reliability credit, and read your distributor GSL page for its thresholds. If you think you qualified and no credit appeared, your distributor must explain why. It is a regulated right, not a goodwill gesture.
Grounded in the analysis
What to do during a blackout, in order
Specific steps that follow from how the network works, not generic advice.
Check for danger first
If a powerline is down, or there is fire, smoke or sparks, call 000 straight away and stay at least 8 metres clear of any fallen line. Safety comes before reporting anything.
Is it you or the network?
Check whether your neighbours and the streetlights still have power. If they do, the fault is in your home: check your safety switch and reset it once. If the whole street is dark, it is a network outage.
Check the map, then report it
Use the live power outage map above to see if an outage is already reported in your area. Then call your distributor faults line (on your bill, or in the table above), not your retailer, and report it once with any detail you noticed.
Protect your fridge and freezer
Keep both doors shut. A closed fridge stays cold for about four hours and a full freezer for roughly a day or more. Do not refreeze food that has fully thawed.
Guard against the restoration surge
Turn off and unplug sensitive appliances like computers, TVs and the air conditioner. When power returns it can come back with a surge that damages anything left on.
Light it safely and plan ahead
Use a torch or battery lantern, never candles, in case of a gas leak. If anyone relies on life support, register with your retailer and keep a backup power plan and a charged power bank ready.
One thing to set up before the next storm: save your distributor faults number in your phone now, while you can see your bill, because in an outage your broadband and cordless phone may be dead too. Keep a charged power bank and a torch where you can find them in the dark, and if you are unsure who your distributor is, the energy distributor page explains how the network side works.
Checking before you call
How to check for a power outage in your area
You have two ways to check for a power outage in your area. The first is the live power outage map at the top of this page: enter your address and it shows whether other people near you have reported being without power, which is the quickest answer to "is it just me, or is the power out near me?". The second is your distributor own outage map, where you enter your address and see what the network officially knows.
A distributor map typically shows reported faults near you, scheduled planned outages, and an estimated time supply will return. If your address shows a known outage, the distributor is already on it and you usually do not need to report it again. If nothing shows and your street is dark, that is exactly when a single accurate report to the faults line is worth making.
One caveat applies to both kinds of map: in a major storm event they can lag behind reality while thousands of faults flood in at once. A blank map during obvious widespread damage does not mean you are not affected; it means the picture is still being built. Report once, then rely on the estimated restoration time once it appears.
Current figures, last updated 2026-06-18
Australian outage facts for 2026. Distributor faults numbers verified against the network websites (ausgrid.com.au, sapowernetworks.com.au, westernpower.com.au, powerwater.com.au and others). GSL thresholds from the distributors and the regulators (the Australian Energy Regulator, aer.gov.au, and the Essential Services Commission, esc.vic.gov.au). Confirm current figures before relying on them, as numbers and thresholds are reviewed regularly.
The bottom line
Why this matters before the next storm
Outages are unavoidable, but the worst minutes of one are usually wasted on the wrong phone call. The households that handle a blackout well are the ones who already know the rule: danger to life means 000, and everything else means the distributor, never the retailer. They check the map to see if it is just them or the whole area, they keep the fridge shut, they protect their electronics from the restoration surge, and they know that long or frequent outages may owe them an automatic GSL credit they should check for. Save your distributor number today, and the next outage becomes an inconvenience instead of a scramble.
Common questions
A Selectra expert answers your power outage questions
The fastest way to check is the live power outage map at the top of this page. Type your address into the check-your-address box and it will recentre the map on your location and tell you whether any active outages have been reported in your area. Because the map is built from user reports, a quiet map does not always mean every fault is known, so if your whole street is dark and nothing shows, report it and call your distributor. For confirmed network faults and restoration times, your distributor also runs its own official outage map.
Use the address check in the map widget above. Start typing your street address and pick it from the suggestions; the tool then drops a pin on the map and counts how many active outages have been reported nearby. It is a quick "is it just me, or is the power out in my area" check. To formally report your own outage, the same box lets you submit it so neighbours see it too, but it does not replace calling your distributor faults line.
Call your distributor (the poles-and-wires network for your address), not your retailer. The retailer bills you for electricity but cannot fix an outage. Your distributor runs a 24/7 faults line, printed on your bill and on its website. In NSW that is Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy or Essential Energy; in Victoria one of CitiPower, Powercor, Jemena, United Energy or AusNet Services; in south-east Queensland it is Energex, elsewhere Ergon Energy; in South Australia SA Power Networks; in Tasmania TasNetworks; in the ACT Evoenergy; in Western Australia Western Power; in the Northern Territory Power and Water. If a powerline is down or life is at risk, call Triple Zero (000) first.
If your neighbour still has power, the fault is probably inside your own property, not on the network. The most common cause is a tripped safety switch or circuit breaker in your switchboard, often set off by a faulty appliance. Try resetting it once. If it trips again, unplug appliances and leave it off, then call a licensed electrician. If your whole street is dark, it is a network outage and you should report it to your distributor.
Often, yes, and you usually do not have to ask. Under the Guaranteed Service Level (GSL) scheme, your distributor must pay an automatic credit if your outages pass set thresholds in a financial year, for total hours off supply, the number of interruptions, or how long restoration took. Ausgrid, for example, sets a threshold around 20 total hours of interruptions or 10 interruptions in a year; SA Power Networks pays when a customer has more than 9 outages or more than 20 hours a year. The payment lands as a credit on your bill, passed through your retailer, without a claim. Thresholds and amounts vary by distributor, so check yours.
A planned outage is scheduled by your distributor for maintenance or upgrades, and you must be given advance notice, usually a letter, SMS or email a few days ahead. An unplanned outage is a fault: storms, fallen trees, equipment failure or a car hitting a pole. You get no warning, and restoration times depend on how widespread and how dangerous the damage is. Both appear on your distributor outage map, but only unplanned outages need reporting.
Keep the door shut. A closed fridge holds a safe temperature for about four hours, and a full freezer for roughly 24 to 48 hours. Every time you open the door you let the cold out and shorten that window. Do not refreeze food that has fully thawed, and if you are unsure whether something stayed cold, throw it out. Avoid running a generator indoors or in a garage, as the exhaust is deadly.
Treat every fallen line as live and deadly. Stay at least 8 metres away (about a bus length), keep others and pets back, and never touch the line or anything it is touching, including fences, trees and water. Call Triple Zero (000) immediately, then your distributor faults line so the network can isolate the supply. If a line falls on your car, stay inside and wait for help unless the car is on fire.
