A couple of weeks ago at the end of a day’s work, we got home at 6 pm to a power cut. Earlier during the day, we had received a message from Vector (New Zealand’s largest electricity and gas distributor) notifying us that there would be an outage in our area. Given the time of the day at which we got the message, we thought that our power supply would be up running as normal. But, that wasn’t the case at all. To add to that, we didn’t have any time to fully prepare ourselves for the outage and had to make alternate arrangements for dinner.

Luckily we have torches and camping lanterns in the house which we used for light. The kids were good about the whole situation and were quite creative about how they entertained themselves until the power was restored just after 8:30 pm.

During the outage, I started thinking about the local businesses affected by the outage that had to shut their doors and the impact it had on their revenue for the day. This prompted a search to see if compensation was available for business and residential customers.

How to get compensation for a power outage

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Lo and behold, Vector offers compensation and has service standards which govern the circumstances under which power customers are eligible. For power outages as a result of faults on their network (faults caused during storms and/or other events outside of their control don’t count), residential customers can make a $50 claim if power is not restored within the timeframes below:

• 2 hours in the CBD
• 2.5 hours in urban areas
• 4.5 hours in rural areas

Claims have to made within six months of the power outage by calling Vector on 0508 832 867.

I called Vector 3 days after the outage and after a short wait, got to speak to one of their customer service representatives (CSR) who asked for the date and time of the outage, physical address to confirm area outage plus an email address and phone number in case they needed to contact us for further details. The CSR explained the that the claim would be accessed and if eligible, the payment would be processed within 10 working days. The call lasted less than 5 minutes and payment for the claim was credited to our account in 3 working days.

Go here for full details on Vector’s residential and business and commercial service standards.

How to prepare yourself for a power outage

As mentioned above, we did get notification of the outage but we did have time to prepare for it. However, there are some things that you can have handy in the house just in case. Vector has a short guide on how to prepare and it includes having the following:

• Torch and spare batteries
• Portable power bank
• Cooking fuel
• Surge protector (to prevent damage to sensitive appliances)

There you have it! If you live in the Auckland area and you experience a power outage longer than the times specified about give Vector a call and claim your $50!