On the afternoon of one of the hottest days this year so far, Sydney's inner west has just gone dark. 11,000 homes are without power, and salvation isn't expected until later tonight. It's not a planned outage caused by excess load, though -- the problem is with the local network in the area.

Australia’s energy markets got a big shock in July this year, when wholesale electricity prices spiked in South Australia, alarming the state government and major industrial customers. Commentators rushed to find the immediate culprits. But the real issues lie elsewhere.

Yesterday evening, South Australia suffered through a massive state-wide blackout. If you were caught in it, you might have been caught unawares -- without a light source, batteries, and a way of keeping your phone charged. Here are five things you can do to make sure you and your property are ready for the next blackout that happens.

South Australia, a state with a population of about 1.7 million, was hit by a massive storm system on Wednesday. The entire region went without power for much of the day as a result.

Earlier this week, a fire at a power plant in Puerto Rico set off a series of failures across the island's ageing electrical grid. These before-and-after pics from space show what it looks like when 1.5 million customers suddenly lose power.