Residents took to social media to vent their frustration. 

The last blackout in the suburb was only a few weeks ago.

According to Ausgrid, there have been three power outages at Gillieston Heights in the past six months – October 22, January 27 and February 10, which each lasted for about two hours.

Some residents questioned whether the was overloaded because of the rapid development in the area in recent years.

But an Ausgrid spokeswoman said a fault on the line was believed to be the cause of Wednesday’s blackout, which affected 1400 homes.

“Our engineers are looking at this closely, but we do know these interruptions are not related to the load on the network,” she said. 

“There is sufficient capacity to meet the needs of the customers supplied by this feeder. 

“The interruption in October was caused by a storm.  

“The likely cause of the two most recent interruptions is a low-level equipment fault, such as a hairline crack in an insulator, which can be very difficult to locate.”

Fanning Street resident John Price, who has lived in the suburb for 15 years, said many residents were fed up with the power interruptions.

He said his family went to bed early on Wednesday, about 30 minutes after the power went out, but were woken when the electricity supply returned just after 11.30pm and the lights and TV all turned on again. 

Mr Price said it was frustrating that residents seemed to get little more than an apology from Ausgrid representatives when the blackout occurred and that the problem had not improved.

“We’ve got no fall back,” he said.

“It’s hurting the reputation of the suburb. We’ve been through the floods and we’ve got this happening. We’re not looking to sell, but it’s hurting the reputation of Gillieston Heights.”

The Ausgrid spokeswoman said engineers fixed several minor defects after the January storm and crews had begun to look for the fault that caused the latest incident.

“We are also switching some areas away from this powerline temporarily, to try to isolate the fault,” she said.

“We understand that any outage has an impact on customers and we are sorry for the inconvenience. 

“However, no electricity network can guarantee an uninterrupted supply. 

“Data for the Maitland LGA shows third party impact – such as cars hitting poles – are responsible for 27 per cent of all outages over the past 12 months. 

“Another 34 per cent were self-clearing faults – typically, these are lightning strikes or branches brushing against powerlines.”