Electrical fault notifications.

If the electricity went out in your home, check these first:

1. Check the electrical equipment and fuses. Sometimes a power cut may be caused by a fault in the electrical equipment in your home or property. If only part of your home is without power, first check the main and group fuses and any residual current circuit breakers. If necessary, replace the blown fuse with a new one.
2. Check if the lights are on next door.
3. If the power seems to have gone out elsewhere, check the blackout map to see how extensive the outage is. If it’s a more extensive outage, it’s likely that our emergency services have already been alerted to the fault. Local media websites are also good sources of information. During the day, you can also get information from local radio news broadcasts on car radio or battery-powered radio.
4. Notify us of a power cut. If the power is out, the fault does not appear on the fault map and you have not yet received a message from us about a power cut, please call 0800 9 2500. We are on call 24/7.

If the power is out, the fault does not appear on the fault map and you have not yet received a message from us about a power cut, call 0800 9 2500 to report the fault. We are on call 24/7.

In the event of maintenance or construction work on the electricity network, in the case of a planned maintenance or outage, we will send you advance notice by SMS or email. In the case of sudden outages, for example caused by high winds, you will receive a message if the outage lasts more than 10 minutes. If the outage lasts longer, we will also send you an estimate of its duration.

We are able to report medium-voltage faults because they are visible in our automated network monitoring system. On the other hand, low-voltage network faults are not detected by the automation system, so we can send information about them after the first fault report on the low-voltage line in question has been made.

You can conveniently subscribe to interruption messages via SMS or email. Our service is free of charge for you and applies to the sites located in the Kajave area.

You can activate the interruption messages either in the My Energy service or by calling our customer service on 010 192 800 (Mon-Fri 9-17).

You will receive a confirmation of the service opening by SMS. If you have changed your SMS to email, you will receive a confirmation at the email address you have provided. You can check and change your details at any time using the My Energy contact form.

Check the blackout map to see how extensive the outage is.

In the event of a power cut, do the following:

• Switch off the cooker, iron and other appliances that could pose a fire risk when the power comes back on.
• Switch off other electrical appliances, such as washing machines and entertainment equipment.
• When the power comes back on, do not switch on the appliances at the same time, as a sudden load surge can cut the power again. It is a good idea to switch on radiators one at a time.
• If your house is heated by electricity and it’s winter, keep as few rooms as possible. It’s best to keep external doors closed and avoid opening the front door unnecessarily.
• Do not open the freezer.
• To be on the safe side, turn off the taps on washing machines.

If you have spotted a fault, such as a tree falling on a power line, please report it immediately to our fault hotline on 0800 9 2500. We are on call 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

Do not touch wires that have fallen to the ground, and do not clear trees from the line or shovel snow off the wires yourself.

We hope that you will continue to call until your call is answered or connected to a recorded helpline, where you can leave a message about the fault location.

In the event of a power failure, a so-called “zero fault” can occur, for example when a tree falls on the power line supplying the property. In the worst case, a zero fault can even cause a life-threatening situation. If the neutral conductor is broken, the result is a voltage fluctuation between 0 and 400 volts. This voltage fluctuation can damage electrical equipment.

The hallmarks of zero tolerance:

• There is a clearly visible variation in brightness of the lighting, which is related to the switching of different electrical devices.
• It is possible to be electrocuted by the metal shells of electrical equipment.
• You may hear a crackling sound from fluorescent lights or an electrical switchboard.
• You may smell smoke or a burnt burn.
• If zero voltage continues, electrical appliances and lighting fixtures may break.

Do this when you detect a zero defect:

• Protect your hands with insulating gloves, such as leather gloves, and switch off the electricity at the main switchboard of the property.
• Do not touch any metal part of the main switchboard in the event of a power cut. In the event of a fault, voltage may also be present on other metallic surfaces.
• When the electricity is cut off, call our emergency hotline on 0800 9 2500. When reporting the fault, tell us that you have cut the electricity to the property.

There are disruptions in electricity supply, not all of which can be prevented and avoided. It is also possible that electricity will come in, but it will be of poor quality. In the event of even a short power cut, every home should have at least the following equipment:

• Flashlight
• candles and matches
• battery-powered radio
• batteries for the radio and torch
• spare batteries
• firewood, if you have a fireplace or wood-burning stove at home

If the power is out, you can listen to the car radio or the radio on your mobile phone. Pre-charged power banks increase the uptime of mobile devices.

Computers should always be plugged into a grounded outlet to ensure that they are protected against interference. The UPS gives the user a few minutes to save work and protects sensitive equipment from surges such as lightning.

If you own a property, it is your responsibility to check that the electricity works in your summer cottage or other property where you do not live permanently.

If the heating system of a leisure property is dependent on electricity, the owner should check the electricity frequently enough. A power cut can cause freezing and melting damage to the pipework.

In rural areas, power cuts occur particularly during periods of high winds, thunderstorms, heavy snowfall and typhoons. Power is usually restored within a couple of hours, but sometimes exceptional weather conditions cause a major disruption, which can take longer to repair.

In winter, the biggest problem caused by an extended power cut is keeping your home warm. In northern Finland, electrically heated houses usually have a fireplace, so it’s a good idea to keep firewood in storage, even if it’s not being burned all the time.

If your house has its own well and the water pump is electric, you should store water in containers. Otherwise, there is usually no need to store water in case of a power cut, as the overhead tank system ensures sufficient water pressure for several hours.

For more tips on preparing for power cuts and other disruptions and crisis situations, see the Preparedness Guide published by the Ministry of the Interior.

Thunderstorms are an everyday occurrence that can smash electrical equipment. However, equipment damage caused by lightning has increased in recent years because modern electrical equipment contains components that are sensitive to lightning surges. Computers, entertainment and refrigeration equipment are most often struck by lightning. Thunderstorms cause more power outages in rural areas than in urban areas because electricity is distributed via overhead lines in rural areas.

The cheapest way to prevent breakdowns is to unplug equipment during a thunderstorm. In addition to the power cords, the antenna cables should also be disconnected from the sockets.

You cannot prevent lightning from striking a house, but you can prevent damage by directing lightning to the ground with a lightning rod. For more information and an estimate of the cost of lightning protection, contact your electrical contractor.

No form of protection can completely prevent thunderstorm damage, but it is an additional form of protection. It is up to the electricity user to assess the risks of lightning surges and implement protection in an appropriate way. For more information, see the brochure “Protection against lightning surges”. You can search for electrical contractors on the Tukes website by municipality and contracting rights.

Thunderstorms can cause surges in the power grid, which temporarily disrupt the operation of sensitive equipment and can sometimes break equipment. Surge protectors can be used to protect against surges. Surge protection is recommended if equipment damage occurs frequently and the area is thunderstorm-prone. An effective protection is a fuse installed on the main pole of the overhead line supplying the house, which protects the electrical connection. Grounding can only be installed during a thaw, as the grounding pair must be dug into the ground.

Surge protection can also be installed on the main switchboard at any time of the year. However, such protection cannot be installed in all old fuse boxes. They are installed by network contractors and electrical contractors, among others.

You can buy a good quality surge protector from an electrical shop, which can be plugged into a socket and to which you can connect an extension lead. The extension lead can then be used to connect the entertainment equipment in the room or the computer and its accessories.

On farms, this can be either an aggregator or a tractor-driven generator. When installing an aggregate, special attention must be paid to electrical safety and the installation must be reported to Kajave Oy at [email protected].

NOTE! Under no circumstances may the standby power system be used to supply power to the Kajave distribution network.

The rate at which a freezer heats up is influenced by the age of the freezer, the operating volume, the insulation thickness, the degree of filling, the condition of the seals, the ambient temperature and the user’s activity. In a study by the Working Thermal Society, the fastest warming of a full freezer to 0°C took 68 to 75 hours in a tank freezer and 52 hours in a cabinet freezer.

The degree of filling in the freezer has a big impact: the entire contents of a full freezer thaw to 0°C 20 to 30 hours slower than the contents of a partial freezer. If you have two freezers in your household, you should combine their contents in the spring. This saves electricity.

Thawed food is usable until it reaches the refrigerator temperature of +5 degrees Celsius. Exceptions are raw meat, fish and seafood, which should be cooked before they reach +2 degrees. Pastries containing sugar, such as buns and sugar cakes, are the quickest to melt. Raw meat melts slowly.

You are entitled to compensation if your power cut lasts for more than 12 hours.

Under the Electricity Market Act, electricity users are entitled to compensation for a power cut lasting more than 12 hours. In accordance with the Electricity Market Act, the electricity company always calculates the length of the blackout on which the standard compensation is based and the amount of compensation accordingly. The standard compensation will be credited to the customer’s electricity bill within six months, without a separate application.

The outage period starts when the electricity company becomes aware of the fault, either through the grid operating system or through notification by the electricity user, and ends when the fault has been repaired.

Please note: The calculation starts from the beginning if the electricity has been on for at least two hours in between. It is therefore possible that you will receive two separate reimbursements if there have been several consecutive interruptions of more than 12 hours at your premises.

Kajave’s network monitoring system shows all medium-voltage faults, the number of households without power and the duration of the outages. Low voltage faults are not automatically alerted, but are reported by customers. Customers are advised to visit summer cottages and other non-residential properties whenever possible to check the electricity supply.

The compensation is paid as a percentage credit on the annual transmission fee of the electricity user site, including tax. The name ‘standard compensation’ describes exactly this, i.e. the amount of compensation is not affected by the financial loss or other damage caused by the blackout. However, the maximum amount of standard compensation payable to an end-user during a calendar year is 200% of the annual transmission service charge, or €2 000.

If the same interruption in electricity supply or supply occurs in the middle of two different calendar years, the standard compensation for the interruption shall be divided into two years on the basis of the proportion of the interruption period in each calendar year.

The maximum amount of the standard allowance may be adjusted by government decree in line with changes in monetary value.

Under the Electricity Market Act, the electricity company has six months to pay the standard compensation. If the compensation has not been paid, even though the length of the blackout justifies it, the customer must submit a written application for standard compensation. The same form is also used to request a change to the compensation paid.

If you have any questions about compensation, you can contact us on our customer service number or by email at [email protected].