Australia Power Outages: Who to Call in Each State

850,000 customers affected

AEMO's final report describes some 850,000 South Australian customers losing supply when severe weather damaged transmission lines and the state's system went black. The report was published on 28 March 2017 with 19 recommendations.

Sources: AEMO, Black System South Australia 28 September 2016, Integrated Final Report (March 2017); AER, Fact sheet: Black System Event Compliance Report

530,000 customers affected

The Victorian Government put the event at over 530,000 customers without power, and AEMO separately reported more than 500,000 from distribution damage. The Moorabool-Sydenham 500 kV lines tripped at 1:08pm market time, about 2,690 MW of generation was lost and about 1,000 MW of load was shaken off, and AusNet was instructed to shed a further 300 MW. An expert panel reported in 2024 with 19 recommendations.

Sources: Premier of Victoria, Putting Consumers First Through Network Outage Review (27 February 2024); AEMO, Preliminary Report: Trip of Moorabool-Sydenham 500 kV No. 1 and No. 2 lines on 13 February 2024; Victorian Government, Network Outage Review

450,000 customers affected

Energex said more than 450,000 premises in Queensland lost power during the event, and described it as the greatest number of outages from a natural disaster in the state's history. It had restored more than 98 per cent of affected customers by 15 March. Essential Energy also had outages in northern NSW; no official peak total was found for its network.

Sources: Energex, Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred update, 15 March 2025; Energex, Ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred update, 10 March 2025

446,348 customers affected

AEMO estimated 446,348 Victorians were without power at 11am on Friday 29 October, including 131,148 on AusNet's network and 117,400 on Powercor's. By 4pm AusNet was down to 113,080 and Powercor to 77,880.

Sources: AEMO, Victorian energy supply: 11am update (29 October 2021); AEMO, Victorian energy supply: 4pm update (29 October 2021)

217,000 customers affected

The Tasmanian Economic Regulator reports 1,062 outages and nearly 217,000 customers interrupted, out of about 295,000 on the distribution network. There were eight major event days from 27 August to 4 September 2024, and TasNetworks paid $9.2 million in guaranteed service payments for the event.

Source: Tasmanian Economic Regulator, Network Reliability Report 2026 (February 2026)

107,000 customers affected

An independent review found about 107,000 connections lost power between 24 and 28 December 2021. Of those, 69,469 were out for longer than 2 hours, 26,091 for at least 12 hours and 42,604 had two or more outages. Mandurah, Wanneroo, Armadale and Greater Geraldton were worst affected.

Source: Independent Review of Christmas 2021 Power Outages, Final Report (Government of Western Australia, March 2022)

40,000 customers affected

Ergon Energy reported outages for around 40,000 customers across Far North Queensland, with about 90 per cent restored by 9pm on 16 December before flooding caused new outages. An AER record gives approximately 50,000 including those later flood outages.

Sources: Ergon Energy, Ergon Energy releases Cyclone Jasper restoration plan (December 2023); AER, record on Ergon Energy and Tropical Cyclone Jasper

On 8 February AEMO directed 100 MW of load shedding in South Australia for 27 minutes, and about 300 MW was actually interrupted. On 10 February AEMO instructed TransGrid to shed the Tomago aluminium smelter by 290 MW in NSW for about an hour, and no residential load shedding was instructed. AEMO's reports give MW, not customer numbers.

Sources: AEMO, System Event Report South Australia, 8 February 2017; AEMO, System Event Report New South Wales, 10 February 2017

The AER's 2009 Victorian performance report says the late-January and early-February heatwaves seriously affected supply reliability, and that high demand with network faults led to a series of load shedding events. No primary customer count was found.

Source: AER, Victorian electricity distribution businesses comparative performance report 2009

The Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission concluded that five of the major fires it investigated were started by powerlines, and eight of its 67 recommendations addressed that risk, leading to the state's Powerline Bushfire Safety Program. No primary customer outage count was found.

Sources: Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience, Bushfires: Black Saturday, Victoria, February 2009; Victorian Government, Powerline Bushfire Safety Program

The Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience's Victorian summary records a peak of approximately 130,000 households without power, which it attributes in that passage to storms. Fires also cut power and mobile phone service north of Ensay and from Bruthen to Omeo.

Source: Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience, Black Summer bushfires, Victoria, November 2019 to February 2020

Tracy struck Darwin on 24 to 25 December 1974, killed at least 66 people and left the city without power, water or communications. More than 35,000 people were evacuated in the following week. Official sources differ on the damage, from about 70 per cent of homes to more than 90 per cent of buildings.

Sources: Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory, Cyclone Tracy; National Archives of Australia, Cyclone Tracy, Darwin (fact sheet)

No customers lost power

AEMO suspended the spot market in all NEM regions from 15 June 2022, with the suspension formally lifted on 24 June. It came very close to customer load shedding, with forecast shortfalls up to about one third of winter peak demand, but AEMO reports that involuntary customer load shedding was avoided.

Source: AEMO, NEM market suspension and operational challenges in June 2022