By Fallen line or hazard
Stay back at least 8 metres, keep clear of standing water near a downed line, and call 111 first. A conductor dropped across a dairy race or a rural road on the ring plain can still be live, so treat every fallen line as energised.
Help your neighbours
Live community map & report a power cut
If neighbours are also without power, the fault is on the network, not your switchboard. The map below shows outages reported by other Selectra readers across New Zealand in real time. Use it as a first diagnostic before you call: if an active outage is already plotted near you, crews likely know about it. A short anonymous report helps others see what is happening in your part of the region. It does not replace the call to your lines company.
Immediate danger
Fallen power line, sparks, burning smell or smoke? Call 111 before reporting anything else. Stay back at least 8 metres from any downed line.
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Report a power cut
Thanks: your report is recorded
Now make the official call to your lines company so a crew is dispatched. For a fallen line or any hazard, dial 111 first.
Who fixes the fault
The lines company for the whole Taranaki region
One lines company owns the poles and wires across Taranaki, so a single number covers New Plymouth, the central towns and the deep rural feeders. Call it if your report shows the outage is on the network.
P
Powerco
New Plymouth, Stratford, Hawera, Eltham and the ring plain
National Powerco faults line, 24/7. Taranaki calls route to the New Plymouth depot, which dispatches crews across the whole region.
Coverage: New Plymouth, Bell Block, Waitara, Inglewood, Oakura, Stratford, Eltham, Hawera, Normanby, Manaia, Opunake, Patea, and the rural ring plain around Mount Taranaki.
Taranaki network signatures
What drives outages across the Taranaki ring plain
A single volcano ringed by dairy farms gives Taranaki a very particular outage profile. Three patterns dominate the regional register.
Mountain weather
The maunga side: Mount Taranaki creates its own weather, and the higher feeders into Inglewood, Kaponga and the eastern hill country catch wet snow, ice and wind that the coastal towns never see. These spurs are the first to trip in a cold front.
Dairy country spurs
South Taranaki around Hawera and Eltham: long overhead lines feed scattered farms and milking sheds across the plain. Tree fall, stock and farm machinery account for many rural faults, and crews travel further to reach them.
Tasman westerlies
The coastal strip from Opunake to Waitara: exposed to the open Tasman, the western coast takes the full force of salt-laden westerly storms that stress conductors and bring branches down on the line before they ever reach the central towns.
A Taranaki tip
If you live on a rural feeder out past the towns or up towards the maunga, expect a longer restoration time than central New Plymouth, and keep a torch, a charged power bank and a battery radio handy through winter. Households with a farm dairy or milking shed should ask Powerco to note a critical-load property when they register one.
By town
More Taranaki outage guides
Drilling into a single town? Each guide below has the same Powerco fault line plus the local outage patterns, suburbs and damage-claim path for that part of the region.
New Plymouth
Coastal city, Bell Block, Waitara and the northern ring plain.
Stratford
Mount Taranaki foothills and the central ring-plain farms.
Hawera
South Taranaki dairy country, Eltham and the rural overhead spurs.
Power outages in a neighbouring region: Manawatu-Whanganui, Waikato or every New Zealand region.
If a power surge damages an appliance in Taranaki
Powerco does not run a consumer damage-claim portal, so surge-damaged appliances are normally handled through your own cover rather than the lines company. Here is the path Taranaki households use.
- 1Call 0800 27 27 27 and ask for the incident reference, the start time and any recorded cause. You will need this if you make a claim.
- 2Lodge the claim through your home contents insurance, the usual route for surge damage. Keep photos, the original receipt and a registered electrician's report.
- 3Send a short written request to your electricity retailer as well, quoting the incident reference, in case the fault is later attributed to network negligence rather than weather.
- 4Expect 4 to 8 weeks. Appliances under 5 years old, with a receipt and an electrician's report, fare best. Storm and snow events are usually treated as weather, not negligence.
Taranaki questions
Frequently asked questions: Taranaki outages
Powerco, the regional lines company, on 0800 27 27 27, 24 hours a day. The same number covers New Plymouth, Stratford, Hawera, Eltham and the whole ring plain. For a hazard such as a downed line, dial 111 first.
Check the community map above to see whether a neighbour has reported a cut, then open the Powerco live outage map for the official list of current and planned outages across the region. If your neighbours still have power, the fault is more likely your own switchboard or main fuse, so check those before you call.
The eastern and southern hill country feeders, around Inglewood, Kaponga and the foothills, run long overhead lines through bush and farmland that catch snow, ice and tree fall. Crews have to travel further and clear hazards before they can re-energise, so a mountain-side outage routinely runs longer than a cut in central New Plymouth.
A single fault in central New Plymouth, Stratford or Hawera: typically 30 to 90 minutes. Rural ring-plain feeders: 1 to 3 hours. Remote foothill or coastal spurs after a storm: 2 to 8 hours, longer when conductors are down over a wide area.
Yes. Powerco gives advance notice of planned maintenance, usually by letter or email, and lists upcoming work on its outage map. If someone in the household depends on mains power for medical equipment, register as a medically-dependent customer with your retailer so the network can give you proactive notice.
Powerco does not run a public damage-claim portal, so surge damage is normally claimed through your home contents insurance. Keep the incident reference, photos, the original receipt and a registered electrician's report, and send a written request to your retailer too. Allow 4 to 8 weeks. Weather-driven storm and snow outages are usually excluded.