ORES power outage: who to call and what compensation

In a power outage, call your grid operator (ORES, RESA, Sibelga or Fluvius), not your supplier. Beyond six hours in Wallonia and Brussels, and four hours in Flanders, a flat rate compensation is due, unless there is force majeure. Only Wallonia pays it without being asked.

Who should you call in a power outage?

Your distribution system operator, the DSO (gestionnaire de réseau de distribution, or GRD, the grid operator you cannot choose). It owns the cables, the substations and the meter, and only it can send a crew. The supplier sells energy and sends the bill, nothing more; each role is explained in our article on the grid operator or the supplier.

Numbers read on 29/10/2026 in CallMePower's table (updated on 05/06/2026) and cross checked with Selectra's outage page for ORES. Your DSO's number is also printed on your annual reconciliation bill.

Before calling, check the neighbours. If the whole street is dark, the fault is on the grid, and the ORES or Fluvius outage map often shows it already. If you alone have no power, the problem is almost always in your own installation, behind the meter: ORES says it does not intervene for an outage limited to one home, and CallMePower reports that Fluvius charges a call out fee when the cause is on your side. A circuit breaker that trips again as soon as it is reset calls for a qualified electrician, not for tinkering with the fuse board.

4,018 compensations paid in Wallonia in a single year

The figure comes from the annual report of the regional energy mediation service of the CWaPE, the Walloon energy regulator, published on 3 July 2026, page 29. In 2025, Walloon grid operators paid 4,018 compensations for outages of more than six hours, totalling €594,785.01. ORES paid €547,753.17 of it, RESA €47,031.84. And 1,827 files were still being processed when the report closed.

The same document sets the benchmark: before 2024, the historical average was around €20,000 a year for all DSOs combined. Thirty times less.

The difference does not come from a suddenly weaker grid. It comes from the law. The CWaPE guidelines updated on 19 December 2024 say it in one sentence: compensation is "now due as of right" from the grid operator. As long as it had to be claimed by registered letter, few households did so, or at least that is the simplest reading of the figures. Once the DSO had to write to the affected customers itself, payments followed.

I divided the total by the number of compensations: €148.03 on average, very close to a single indexed six hour block. The report does not break down durations, but this average suggests that most compensations relate to outages of six to twelve hours. Long nights without power remain the exception, or fall under force majeure.

How much do you get after six hours without electricity?

It depends on the region, and by a lot. The threshold, the amount, whether it is automatic and the deadline all change at the regional border.

Sources: CWaPE (19/12/2024) and 2026 scale relayed by Selectra (23/10/2026) for Wallonia; decisions of the dispute service of Brugel, the Brussels energy regulator, Selectra and DH (2021) for Brussels; vlaanderen.be for Flanders, consulted on 29/10/2026.

Take a 13 hour outage on a January evening. A Walloon household receives two started blocks, €293.68, without lifting a finger. The same household in Brussels receives a single flat amount, €134 at the latest documented figure, provided it sent the form. In Flanders, the scale detailed by CallMePower gives €75 for an outage of 12 to 16 hours, or €150 in midwinter, after a request to Fluvius. For Brussels, Sibelga does not publish the current year's amount: the €134 comes from a Brugel decision on an outage of 9 July 2024, and another comparison site puts forward €107.42 without a source, which shows how poorly the figure circulates.

A widespread error deserves correcting. CallMePower still writes, on a page updated on 11 September 2026, that "none is automatic" and that you must claim everywhere within 60 days. That is wrong for Wallonia since the revision described by the CWaPE.

When can the grid operator refuse to pay?

When both the outage and its extension beyond the threshold come from force majeure. The two conditions are cumulative, and the operator has to prove them. In Wallonia, it must publish a detailed justification on its website: weather bulletins, photos, technical report.

ORES did so for the storm of 30 May 2026: an outage of 20 hours 52 minutes in the area of postcode 5190, which the ORES notice classifies as force majeure, "no compensation will be paid". Rereading Brugel's case law, I found the other recurring grounds for refusal. Here are the ones to know before you claim:

• Weather force majeure: storm, flood, lightning. For a flooded neighbourhood substation on 9 July 2024, Sibelga had paid the €134 flat amount, but Brugel rejected the €3,000 damage claim on grounds of force majeure (decision R2024-279).
• Two outages that do not make one: on 19 August 2025, in Brussels, a first outage of one hour, a temporary restoration, then a second of five hours. More than six hours in total, but not consecutive: Brugel declared the complaint unfounded (decision R2025-219).
• The announced outage: planned and notified work gives no right to compensation, except for the hours beyond the announced duration.
• A fault behind the meter: a defective private installation never makes the DSO liable.
• A missed deadline: 60 days in Brussels, 30 days in Flanders, and the claim is lost.

Note the time of the outage.

Damaged appliances: a separate scheme, and usually a refusal

The flat amount does not cover a fridge, an internet box or a heat pump damaged by a surge when power returns. For such damage, the scheme is separate, stricter, and the Walloon statistics show it plainly. In 2025, Walloon grid operators accepted 604 electrical damage claims out of 4,053, for €1,273,707.38, again according to the CWaPE SRME report (page 30). That is a 14.9 % acceptance rate, and an average of €2,108.79 per accepted claim by our calculation. More than a thousand files were still pending.

In Wallonia, an excess of €100 indexed stays with you, and the damage must be reported by registered letter within 90 days, six months at the latest after the incident, with purchase invoices and photos. In Brussels, the excess is €30 and the dispute service requires proof of fault by Sibelga. The cap is €2 million per event, all customers combined, except in case of gross negligence.

For the contents of the freezer, home insurance is often what pays. CallMePower notes that most policies cover food that has become unfit for consumption, provided it is reported quickly, sometimes within 24 to 48 hours. Take photos before throwing anything away.

Who do you turn to if the compensation does not arrive?

Not the federal Energy Ombudsman (Service de médiation de l'énergie), contrary to what several guides say: outage compensation falls under regional law. In Wallonia, to the CWaPE regional mediation service, within a year, following the procedure described on wallonie.be. In Brussels, to Brugel's dispute service. In Flanders, to the Vlaamse Ombudsdienst, after a complaint to Fluvius.

An outage is no reason to change supplier

The reflex is understandable. After a night without power, you blame whoever sends the bill, and start comparing Engie, Luminus or Eneco. But no supplier controls the grid: a Mega customer and a TotalEnergies customer on the same street get their power back at the same minute, and receive the same compensation from the same operator. Grid quality cannot be bought; in Flanders, the Vlaamse Nutsregulator (VNR, formerly VREG, the Flemish energy regulator) measured for 2024 an outage frequency of 0.068 per customer on the low voltage grid, about one household in fifteen, for an average unavailability of 12 minutes and 59 seconds over the year. Price, on the other hand, can be compared: do it in our ranking of the best electricity suppliers, work out your case with the simulator, and do not confuse this outage with a cut off for an unpaid bill, which follows an entirely different procedure.