More than 2300 customers lost power intermittently on May 8, 15, 17 and 24 in Gungahlin, Jacka, Bonner, Amaroo and Forde.

Then about 3000 residents in Harrison, Gungahlin, Kenny, Kinlyside and Mitchell went dark on Friday morning.

ActewAGL's general manager of energy networks Stephen Devlin said two of the blackouts were caused by cable faults, one by a safety 'protection setting' tripping, and one by a third party digging into a cable.

"In each case, crews responded as quickly and safely as possible to get the power back on for customers, and then worked to resolve the fault," Mr Devlin said in a statement.

"When dealing with the underground network the process of isolating and repairing faults takes more time than in other suburbs with overhead poles and wires.

"This is compounded by having to switch the power on and off as part of the process to locate underground faults and to switch around the fault to restore supply.

"The first fault required three hours to resolve, and power was restored within two hours for the other three outages."

The June 2 blackout was also caused by issues with two feeders, ActewAGL branch manager works delivery Clinton McAlister said. The power was restored about 9.40am.

Mr Devlin explained the outages as a side effect of the significant expansion of Gungahlin.

"The growth of the ACT is exciting and the current focus is in north Canberra. There's significant infrastructure work underway to build and service new suburbs. That means a lot of excavation and building works that often impact the electricity grid. In addition, ActewAGL is also adapting the network to support this urban development," Mr Devlin said.

Labor backbencher and Member for Yerrabi Michael Pettersson said ActewAGL needed to offer customers a rebate on their next bill given the "inconvenience".

"We've seen similar utility companies like Telstra compensate customers when there have been outages, and I think it's only appropriate ActewAGL do the same," Mr Pettersson said.

LIberal leader Alistair Coe said: "Given the high power prices Canberrans pay, people should not have to battle temperatures dropping into the negatives without heating systems due to unexplained power failures."

Bonner resident Harin Chandradeva, who was in the middle of cooking dinner when the power first shut off four weeks ago.

An hour later the electricity came back on but within 10 minutes it was off again.

A week later the same "on-off" blackout occurred and the following week the same pattern happened again.

Mr Chandradeva said he wasn't looking for compensation but answers.

"Surely a company of their size and in the business they're in they should know what caused a major, inter-suburb electricity outage four weeks ago. If they don't know what the issue is four weeks after, there's clearly something wrong in their systems," Mr Chandradeva said.

One affected mother who has a domestic violence order against her former partner said her phone went flat during the outages and she had to drive around for an hour "to feel safe".

"I have three small children. I couldn't heat up bottles, had to nappy change in the dark and had to twice go buy dinner out. My children and I also suffer health conditions which we need electricity for," she said.

Bonner mum Amelia Darmody said she was boiling water on the stove in the dark for her 18-month-old boy's bath.

Her child was hospitalised last year with respiratory conditions and is especially susceptible to croup. He became sick last week and she believed it was because they were unable to keep the heating on.

Ms Darmody indicated she would like some form of compensation.

"I'm a contractor and I lost a good chunk of my income having to stay at home with a sick child," she said.

But while ActewAGL has apologised to customers affected by the blackouts they have refused to offer compensation.

"ActewAGL cannot and does not guarantee 100 per cent uninterrupted supply of electricity. While the outages have been inconvenient, compensation is not available as they have not been caused by our negligence or breach of contract," Mr Devlin said.

Bonner resident Alexandra Fretwell agreed with the company's decision.

"Mistakes happen and it was beyond ActewAGL's control. I think people who are asking for compensation are completely out of line. It was probably five hours [of blackout] over the last month. In the end they're saving on power by not having it on," Ms Fretwell said.