About Outage Watch

Why it exists

SA Power Networks' outage map shows what is happening right now. Once the power comes back, the outage disappears and there is no public record of it. Outage Watch checks the same public data about once a minute and keeps every outage it sees, so you can ask questions the official map can't answer:

• How often does the power go out in my suburb?
• How long do outages really last, compared with the estimate?
• Did the power go out while I was away?
• Are faults becoming more or less frequent?

Where the data comes from

Everything comes from the feed behind SA Power Networks' public outage map: current outages, and planned work scheduled months ahead. The customer counts and outage areas are SA Power Networks' estimates, not measurements.

How restoration times are measured

SA Power Networks doesn't publish a "restored" status. An outage just drops out of the feed. Outage Watch counts an outage as restored once it has been missing from two checks in a row, and records the last time it was actually seen. That makes restoration times accurate to within about a minute. If this site missed some checks, outages that ended during the gap are marked gap rather than shown as precise.

Common questions

My power is out, but it isn't on the map

SA Power Networks may not have logged it yet. Report it to them directly using the official outage map. This site can't take reports.

How accurate are the estimated restoration times?

The statistics page compares each estimate with when the outage actually ended, and shows how often they finish early or run late.

Why doesn't the history go back further?

SA Power Networks publishes no archive, so there was nothing to backfill. History starts from the day this tracker started running.

Not affiliated

Outage Watch is an independent project. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by SA Power Networks. Outage data © SA Power Networks. For anything official, including safety information and fault reports, go to SA Power Networks.