If the power goes off in the UK, first find out whether it is only your home, then report it online or by calling 105, which is free in Great Britain. Keep the fridge and freezer doors shut and use a torch instead of candles. Never use a barbecue or camping stove indoors, and keep any generator outside. Call 999 if anyone is in danger.
The steps below follow the order you will need them in: the first hour, the first evening and a cut that goes on. Every figure comes from an official UK page, and we checked each one on 25 October 2026. The sources are listed at the end. This is reference material, not medical advice.
The first hour
- Find out whether it is only your home. Electricity North West, one of the network operators, says to look at the trip switches first. If they point downward, flick them back up. If they already point up, see whether the neighbours' power and the street lights are on, which tells you if the cut is just your property or the whole area.
- Report the cut and follow updates on your network operator's website. If you can't use the website, call 105 for free from anywhere in Great Britain. In Northern Ireland the number is 03457 643643. Ofgem says 105 puts you through to your electricity network operator.
- Keep away from power lines. The government warns that electricity at high voltages can jump gaps with no warning.
- Turn off heat sources such as irons and ovens, and unplug the TV and PC. The TV and PC can be damaged by the surge when the power comes back.
- Use a torch, not candles. The government's page says torches are safer than candles, and adds that your phone's torch will drain its battery faster, so keep that for when you need it.
- Leave the fridge and freezer closed. Closed doors keep both cold for several hours.
- Switch on a battery or wind-up radio and search for stations that are still broadcasting. The government says to try FM and digital. Don't wait for a web page: the Be Ready site says it will not be updated with live information during an emergency.
The first evening
The heating usually stops too. Gas ovens, boilers and heat pumps all need power, and homes can become cold very quickly. The government's advice is blankets and layers, doors of unused rooms closed and curtains drawn. Older adults, babies, young children and people with long-term health problems are the most likely to become ill from the cold. The Chief Medical Officers' broadcast scripts for a national power outage add a simple idea: get everyone into one room to share warmth.
Food is the next question. The FSA says a cut under 4 hours is unlikely to affect the safety of food in the fridge or freezer. After that, your fridge should stay cold for up to 4 hours and a full freezer should stay frozen for up to 48 hours, or 24 hours if half full, though it calls these estimates. A fridge thermometer tells you more than guessing. Food can stay in the fridge while it is under 8°C. Once it reaches 8°C or above, eat the food that normally needs refrigeration within 4 hours, and eat it first. Our food timer counts the same 4 and 48 hours from US guidance.
Cooking needs a plan. Electric and induction cookers stop, but gas cookers may carry on. The FSA says you can cook on a camping stove or a barbecue, and adds that most are designed for outdoor use only. The NHS is blunter: do not use a barbecue or camping stove indoors or inside a tent. Carbon monoxide has no colour and no smell, and the NHS lists portable generators among the appliances that can produce it. The Chief Medical Officers' scripts say a generator belongs outdoors, at least 6 metres or 20 feet away, with the exhaust facing away from windows and doors. Those scripts were written for broadcasters in a national outage and state that they are not government policy, but the rule matches the NHS's.
If you have appliances that burn gas, oil, coal or wood, the NHS advises one alarm for each room that holds one. If you think you have symptoms, the NHS says to call NHS 111. It says to call 999 or go to A&E if you find it hard to breathe or lose consciousness.
Your mobile may stop working if the local mast loses power. For a life-threatening emergency the government says to try 999 or 112 on the mobile anyway, because emergency calls roam onto any available network. If a landline is your only way to call, or you have a telecare kit on it, ask your landline provider now what will happen in a cut.
Then check on the neighbours, and share blankets or food if you can.
If it goes on
Most power cuts are short and local. The government warns that wider, longer ones can happen and may last several days. Mains water can be disrupted too, which is why its list asks for at least 3 days of bottled water at 3 litres per person per day. Our water calculator works in US gallons, so for a UK home multiply the 3 litres yourself: 4 people for 3 days is 36 litres.
Eating less is not the emergency it feels like. The Chief Medical Officers' food script says most people will have no serious negative effects from eating less than normal for a few days, and that the main thing is to make sure what you do eat is safe. It names babies, young children, pregnant and breastfeeding women, older people and anyone with a weakened immune system as more likely to become seriously unwell from food poisoning. Those groups should not eat chilled ready-to-eat food, leftovers included, after 4 hours without power, even if it stayed in the fridge. In a national outage the script says emergency information would be limited to radio, specifically BBC Radio 2 and Radio 4. That is the reason to own a battery radio and to know where it is in the dark.
Cash matters when cards and cash machines fail, so keep a small amount at home. Charging is the other problem. How long a power station keeps a laptop going depends on its size, and our runtime calculator works it out, so decide in advance what you charge first.
If power rationing is ever needed in a national shortage, the government says cuts could rotate area by area. Each area in Great Britain has a load block letter, and a block would be disconnected for around 3 hours at a time. You can find your letter by entering your postcode at powercut105.com, and some suppliers print it on electricity bills.
Payments after a long cut
When the power returns, ask whether you are owed money. Ofgem says your network operator must restore supply within 12 hours outside severe weather. It pays automatically if you are without power long enough: £100 for a home when fewer than 5,000 properties are affected for more than 12 hours, or when more than 5,000 are affected for more than 24 hours, plus £45 for each further 12 hours. There are two things Ofgem does not pay for: blackouts caused by a national power shortage and damage to electrical equipment or appliances.
Before the next one
A few jobs are worth doing before the next cut. Write the power cut number on paper, together with the frequencies of the radio stations you use for news. Sign up to the Priority Services Register if you might qualify: it is free, and Ofgem says it gets you priority support in an emergency and, wherever possible, advance notice of scheduled power cuts. Lots of households are eligible, including those with children under 5. If you use medical equipment that needs power, make a plan with your care provider now. Then check you hold 3 days of water and food that needs no cooking, plus a torch, a radio and a charged power bank.
Different rules elsewhere in the UK
Northern Ireland uses 03457 643643 instead of 105, and calls the Priority Services Register the Customer Care Register. The FSA's power cut advice does not cover Scotland, which has its own food agency that we did not check. For local advice, the Be Ready site sends readers in Scotland and Northern Ireland to Ready Scotland and NI Direct.
We're building an offline assistant, Waystone, which is still in development and not on sale. It is designed to bring up pages like these without a connection. For now a printed copy of the steps above, kept with the torch, does the job.