Kelowna Power Outages

Which utility serves your part of Kelowna?

The whole City of Kelowna is served by FortisBC. That includes central Kelowna, which ran its own City-owned electric utility until FortisBC bought it in 2013, as well as Glenmore, Rutland, the Mission, the south-east benches and the north end around the airport. If you live in Kelowna, the FortisBC outage map is the one to check.

Across the bridge it changes. West Kelowna, Westbank and Peachland are mostly BC Hydro, so residents there need BC Hydro’s map and phone line. If you aren’t sure, look at the name at the top of your power bill. It is the quickest way to know who to call.

Why Kelowna loses power

Kelowna’s outages have a handful of familiar causes. Local news and FortisBC’s own updates show the same patterns year after year:

• Vehicles hitting poles. A car into a power pole is one of the most common causes of a sudden neighbourhood outage. FortisBC regularly reports these on its social channels, sometimes affecting more than a thousand customers.
• Summer storms and wind. July and August thunderstorms bring gusts that drop branches and whole trees onto lines. Search interest in “power outage Kelowna” jumped to about 6,600 a month in July 2026, roughly three times the usual level.
• Equipment failures. Transformers, insulators and underground cables fail, especially in heat waves when the network carries air-conditioning loads. In April 2026 one outage stretched from the Capri Centre area to South-East Kelowna and affected about 2,770 customers.
• Animals. Birds and squirrels on equipment cause short, local outages, often at a single transformer.
• Wildfire season. FortisBC may switch off lines near an active fire, at the request of firefighting authorities. In extreme fire weather it also has a Public Safety Power Shutoff plan, aimed mainly at rural Okanagan-Similkameen areas.
• Planned work. Upgrades and repairs need lines switched off. FortisBC lists planned outages ahead of time on the same map, under future outages.

What to do when the power goes out

1. Check whether it is just you. Look at the breaker panel and your neighbours’ lights. If only your home is dark, a tripped main breaker is more likely than an outage.
2. Check the map. FortisBC for Kelowna, BC Hydro for the westside. If your outage is already listed, you don’t need to report it.
3. Report it if it isn’t listed. Phone FortisBC on 1-866-436-7847 and give your address.
4. Unplug sensitive electronics. Computers, TVs and chargers can be damaged by surges when power returns. Leave one light switched on so you know when it is back.
5. Keep the fridge and freezer closed. A closed fridge stays cold for about four hours, a full freezer for about two days.
6. Never run a generator indoors, in a garage or near an open window. Carbon monoxide kills. Use a proper transfer switch, never a cord back-fed into a wall outlet.

How long do Kelowna outages last?

Most outages in the city are fixed in a few hours. Crews first find the cause, then isolate the damaged section so as many customers as possible can be restored while the repair goes on. That is why power often comes back in stages, and why neighbours a block apart can see different restoration times.

Longer outages usually involve broken poles, several lines down after a storm, or wildfire activity. Homes at the edge of the grid, on long rural lines in areas like June Springs or Crawford Estates, can wait longer than homes in the core, simply because there are fewer alternative routes to feed them.

Wildfire season and planned shut-offs

Since 2025 FortisBC has had a Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) policy for extreme wildfire weather. It is meant to be a last resort and uses narrow triggers: a very high fire-weather index together with sustained winds of more than 75 km/h. It applies mainly to rural parts of the Okanagan-Similkameen, and a shut-off can last up to 72 hours. Separately, FortisBC uses more sensitive line settings in fire season, which means a fault can switch a line off faster than at other times of year. Check FortisBC’s website to see whether your area has a PSPS plan.

For most Kelowna homes, wildfire season matters less for planned shut-offs than for smoke, heat and the occasional evacuation-area outage. It is still the time of year when a backup plan earns its keep.

Why grid-tied solar panels go dark in an outage

It surprises a lot of people: a home with solar panels loses power in an outage, just like its neighbours, even on a sunny day. This is deliberate. A grid-tied inverter is required to stop sending power the moment the grid fails, so it can’t push electricity back onto lines that crews are repairing. It switches back on automatically a few minutes after the grid returns.

To keep power during an outage, the house needs to be able to disconnect itself from the grid and run on its own. That is what a battery with a backup gateway or transfer switch does. It isolates your home, then runs your chosen circuits from the battery. If you also have panels, they keep recharging the battery during the day, so a sunny outage can go on for days without you noticing much.

We size backup around the circuits you choose. A fridge, furnace fan, internet, lights and a few outlets need much less battery than central air conditioning or an electric range. Battery backup installation →