Outages & faults

Check out who to contact in your area.

Contact our team about outages or faults in your area through our Faults Page.

Alternatively you can contact your distributor, use our distributor lookup tool to find out who your distributor is for electricity or gas and get their contact information.

Yes. If you or anyone at your property relies on a continuous supply of electricity for critical medical support such that if you were cut off it may cause serious harm or loss of life, you need to let us know.

You can let us know by calling us on 1800 462 668, Monday to Friday, 9am to 7pm.

Before you can be classified as a Medically Dependent Consumer (MDC) in our system, we will need to verify your eligibility for this status with your health provider. You will need to provide us with a Notice of Potential MDC Status filled in by your District Health Board, private hospital or GP.

It is important to be aware that no electricity retailer can guarantee a continuous supply of electricity. Power outages may occur at any time without warning (eg in the case of extreme weather, accidents involving power poles etc). It is your responsibility to ensure you have a backup power supply in case there is an unplanned power outage. Your GP or health provider should be able to help you implement a suitable plan.

First things first: check the mains switch is in the ON position (it should be left in the OFF position when waiting for your power to be turned on). If you don’t know how to check, or have any problems, give us a call on 1800 462 668.

If the house has been empty for a while the power may have been disconnected. In which case, we’ll reconnect you. You may have to pay a reconnection fee — see our fees and charges.

Your power could be off for a few reasons — eg extreme weather, damage to a power pole or some kind of lines fault. The outage may be specific to your property, or there may be a more widespread problem in the network.

Your power could be off for a few reasons — eg extreme weather, damage to a power pole or some kind of lines fault. The outage may be specific to your property, or there may be a more widespread problem in the network.

Keep yourself safe
Keep yourself and others well clear of any electrical lines and wires — even if your power is out, you should treat all lines and wires as if they’re live and dangerous.

First up
It’s best to call your distribution company to report the fault. If you don’t know who your distributor is, you can find out on our faults and emergencies page here.

If other houses in your street are out, there’s a good chance someone will be working on the problem already and it’s just a matter of time before the power is back on. Your distributor will typically keep information on its website and Twitter feed up to date so these are good places to check for news and alerts too. They may also send you text messages to update you on progress.

Switch off appliances at the wall
If your power goes off it’s a good idea to switch off all electrical appliances at the wall. It’s especially important to make sure hazardous appliances (heaters and ovens) or sensitive electronic equipment (computers) are turned off or unplugged at the wall, to reduce the risk of fire or damage to equipment if there is an electricity surge when the supply is restored. Just leave a light or two on so you know when the power has come back on.

We’ve recently tightened up our password security, which means your password now must meet certain criteria in order to be accepted by our system.

To get the best out of your online account, you need to be using a recent version of Chrome, Firefox, Safari (Mac OS) or Edge. If you are using Internet Explorer 11 or an older version of any of the above browsers, your experience may be less than perfect.

To use the Powershop app, you’ll need an iPhone using iOS 10 (or above) or an Android phone using 4.0.3 (or above) with a screen quality of 470dp x 320dp.

If you aren’t able to upgrade your operating system to either of the above, you’ll still be able to access your account online.