How Power is Restored

Safety is Our Top Priority 

We work hard to make sure our customers have a safe, reliable source of power. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, an outage occurs. This may be caused by severe weather, fallen branches, roadway accidents, animal interference, equipment failure, or many other reasons. 

Our first concern is always safety - for our employees and for our customers. Our system is strategically designed to protect public safety, through protective mechanisms that cut off power to a faulted area - to isolate the problem and prevent further damage to equipment. Our control room operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and our crews are well trained to respond quickly and efficiently. They begin restoring power as soon as it is safe to do so. 

Once ENWIN crews have ensured that impacted areas are safe for workers, they will begin to restore power. During outages impacting a significant portion of the community, priorities are established with consideration for the safety concerns of the community as a whole. Restoration plans are developed taking many priorities into account, including: critical infrastructure elements without power such as Fire & EMS stations, hospitals, pumping & sewerage stations; areas with large numbers of customers without power; the severity of damage in each location and time to make repairs. The efficient deployment of our restoration crews is crucial; restoring power to the largest number of affected customers in the shortest time possible is the focus of our plans. 

Our principal priority at all times is the safety of our staff and the public. 

Estimated Restoration Times 

Once ENWIN crews have assessed an outage, they will provide the most accurate estimate they can for the restoration of power. In the case of planned or major unplanned outages, this information will be broadcast through Twitter and on radio. For smaller outages, customers can visit the  ENWIN Outage Map  for this information. 

Please understand that our best estimate is still an estimate - based on our initial assessment of the situation. In many cases, estimates will need to be revised, as further reports are received from the crews on site. 

Often, our system controllers can restore power sooner than expected. At other times crews may face challenges that lengthen the estimated time of restoration - such as difficulty locating the trouble, limited access to the area, dangerous weather conditions or multiple competing restorations. 

Restoration times are dependent on the availability of both crews and equipment in the affected areas. During severe storms or emergency situations, things can change often and quickly. There may be times when we are not able to provide an estimated restoration time or update. At these times, we ask the community to remain calm and rest assured that we are on the job and working as hard we can to restore power.