Hot weather leads to huge demand on the electricity system as households and businesses blast air conditioning to stay cool.

Blackouts can occur when the electricity grid is under immense stress.

Energy Networks Australia and the Australian Energy Council have partnered to help customers understand why it occurs and how it can be prevented.

One tip is for customers to find out which company supplies their electricity, in order to stay on top of advice if there's a power outage.

Households are sometimes asked to help reduce demand on the system by not running air conditioners quite as cold.

People who need to run life support equipment at home are urged to tell their power companies, and to have a back-up power plan in case there are outages.

The power sector expects demand to be at its greatest on the third or fourth day of a heatwave, with bumper amounts of air conditioners on.

School holidays and weekends are also risky periods, but the increasing uptake of household solar has helped to reduce demand on the grid during the day.

But that shifts peak demand to later in the day when sunshine dwindles.

The impact of that is expected to minimise as more Australians add battery storage to their homes to store power created through solar panels.

Australian Associated Press