Royal Hotel owner Tom Archer said the pub had lost "anywhere from $15,000 to 20,000" in revenue as a result of five blackouts, four of which have occurred in the past six weeks.

Essential Energy's northern tablelands operations manager, Mark Summers, said the unplanned power outages were caused by "storms and high winds, including an incident where a power pole was hit by lightning".

"While storms and high winds can cause an unplanned power outage immediately, the damage caused from these events can also cause a power outage at a later point in time," he said.

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Spring Ridge resident Lesley Stewart said the blackouts were "terrible" and occurred whenever there was a storm.

"The storm starts and five minutes later there's no power so you don't want storms," she said.

Mr Summers said the significant damage to the Liverpool Plains network meant crews and equipment from both Quirindi and Tamworth were needed to get the power back on.

"Where total fire bans are in place - as has been the case when a number of the unplanned power outages have occurred in Spring Ridge - power restoration efforts will take longer then normal due to additional safety requirements," he said.

He said powerlines in rural areas like Spring Ridge were "largely radial with very long sections" so they were "more susceptible" to blackouts than cities because of their "increased exposure to environmental factors".

Mr Summers said they recommended that customers who relied on continuous power think about installing or hiring a generator or other stand-alone generation systems as a back-up.

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Mr Archer said the pub's switchboard would need to be updated to run a generator and they already pay $12,000 a year for an Eftpos machine.

The quotes for both the electrical work and a generator are more than $30,000, which Mr Archer says "isn't possible for us".

"In these times, I don't think it is feasible for us [and] the pub is coming up for an upgrade in 12 months, so our hands are tied are far as doing that [upgrade]," he said.

"If [an outage] goes longer than 12 hours, you go into emergency mode and try and run a generator. The trouble is, you can't run Eftpos, till, WiFi and all the security as well."

Mr Archer said they were not legally allowed to trade in a blackout because of protocols around security footage.

"It's a bit more complicated when power goes down than public thinks," he said.

"You never want to turn customers away."

Mr Summers said further maintenance was planned for the Spring Ridge area, but it had been postponed earlier this month at the request of a number of residents.