Unplanned Power Outages

If you have provided your mobile number to your electricity retailer, you may receive a text when your power goes out unexpectedly. This will include a link to the outage information on our website. You will receive a second text when the power has been restored with the cause of the power outage.

Unplanned notification

Planned Shut Downs

If you have provided your email address to your electricity retailer, you may receive an email notifying you of any planned power shutdowns which will impact you, with a link to the outage information on our website. You will also be notified if the shutdown is rescheduled or cancelled.

If you have not provided any details to your electricity retailer, you can still subscribe to receive outage notifications through our outage centre.

If you do not want to receive these notifications, you will be able to unsubscribe by:

Outage notifications from Top Energy do not require you to enter a username, PIN or password. Never send sensitive personal information by email or text.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where did you get my contact details?
We have an agreement with your electricity retailer that we will use the email and mobile details you have supplied them to notify you about planned and unplanned power outages.

Can I receive notifications if I’m not the bill payer?
 Yes. If you want to receive outage notifications but are not the bill payer, you can subscribe to receive outage notifications through our outage centre.

Can I subscribe if I haven’t provided my email or mobile details to my power retailer?

You can do this manually. Subscribe to receive outage notifications through our outage centre.

Can I get both planned and unplanned outage notifications sent to my email and mobile?
Yes, you can do this via the subscribe form through our outage centre.

How do you know to send me a notification?
Outages reported or detected are loaded onto our outage map and identify which properties are impacted. If a power outage impacts your property, this triggers an automated notification to be sent to you.

What happens if I move?
We will be notified when you power retailer updates your details automatically. How long this takes will depend on how often your retailer sends through updates to Top Energy.

Will I receive text messages in the middle of the night?
We will not text you between 10 PM and 7 AM unless you have signed up for that. If there has been a power outage overnight, you will receive a text about it the following morning.

You can choose to receive text notifications between 10 PM to 7 AM anytime through the subscribe form on our outage centre.

My power is out but I didn’t receive a notification – Why?
There are a few reasons this might happen if we are not aware that your power is out. If this is the case your power outage will not appear on our outage map. You can check our website's outage map. In this case, please let us know about your outage by calling our faults line on 0800 867 363.

Reasons for this could be:

  • The cause of the power outage is inside your property boundary. We can only monitor power outages on the Top Energy network. The cable or line inside your property boundary belongs to you.
  • The power lines impacted are low-voltage lines. These are the lines that run down side streets. We will try and put them on the outage centre, but it’s a manual process, unlike the bigger high voltage lines, which are automated in our systems. Call us on 0800 867 363, we will be able to tell you what’s happening.
  • The power went out between 10PM and 7AM and you have not chosen to receive notifications during that time. You will receive a notification the following morning.
  • You are in a poor coverage area and cannot receive the notification
  • Your retailer has not provided us with your details. You can subscribe at any time through our outage centre.

I received a notification saying my power is back on, but it isn’t. Why?
There are a couple of reasons this can happen. For example:

  • The power is going on and off, for example, a tree sways into the line. You may receive a couple of messages as they are automated.
  • When there is a large power outage, as parts of the line are restored, we will attempt to only send ‘restored’ messages to those whose power has been switched on, but it isn’t fail-safe. We are working to make this more accurate.
  • There is an unknown fault. Call us to report your fault on 0800 867 363 (0800 TOP ENERGY)

Why does the cause for the outage say ‘Fault not found’?
There are a couple of possible reasons. This may happen if:

  • Something contacts the power line such as a branch, then the wind removes the branch. We will not be able to say for sure what caused the outage – we can only guess.
  • The power goes out, and then the automated system attempts to get the power back on again and is successful. We may not know why it was out in the first place.
  • There are many outages and our faults team is very busy. During storm conditions, they may miss the odd ‘cause’ reason as they are focused on getting the power back on everywhere else. This most often happens when there are high winds and/or flooding, which is likely to be the reason for the power outage.