BURRINGBAR butcher Brett O'Keefe worries if the lights flicker just before closing time at 5pm.

All-too-frequent blackouts have left Mr O'Keefe and other businesses in the heart of the small Tweed village looking at alternatives to mains power, such as generators or solar panels.

It is the closing time blackouts which Mr O'Keefe really hates.

“I've been left having to clean the whole shop in the dark,” he said.

“Sometimes it was up to five or six or even 10 hours. I have to keep my cold room running 24 hours a day.”

Mr O'Keefe said his home 300 metres away was on a differ- ent power line and rarely affected by outages.

Burringbar General Store part-owner Doug Clarke said the blackouts were a major nuisance.

“If it goes for a long time all our freezers defrost,” he said.

“We've basically got to close the doors because of people opening the fridges, and the EFTPOS doesn't work.

“The frustrating thing about it is half-a-kilometre away they have always got power because they are on a different grid.”

Last week businesses and residents had hoped to hold a meeting with representatives of electricity infrastructure provider Essential Energy.

“Four days before the meeting they rang up and said they had to attend a meeting in Port Macquarie,” said local progress association president Bernie Quinn.

Essential Energy regional manager for community relations Mike Healy said senior staff planned to attend the meeting, but at short notice were called to a managers' meeting.

“We are definitely happy to go to another meeting,” Mr Healy said.

He said Essential Energy had recently under- taken a $500,000 upgrade of lines to Burringbar through the Dunbible area to improve capacity and reliability.

He confirmed Burringbar and Upper Burringbar relied on that high-voltage line, whereas nearby Mooball was supplied via Hastings Point.

He said it appeared the Burringbar line suffered more storm damage in recent times.