One resident, who had tried to contact Powerco about the outages, texted the Times-Age in the afternoon saying, "Communication is dead at Powerco, like our lines all day Sunday on High St. We never got a letter - how about advising these things on the radio?"
Other residents said they did not receive notification of the outages. "Wish we would have been told in advance of the maintenance work," said one Facebook commenter.
Powerco Acting Network Operations Manager Dean Stevenson said around 140 Masterton customers were affected by Sunday's planned power cut, which lasted around nine hours.
He said a planned power cut was necessary to ensure field crews could undertake the upgrade work safely.
"We realise any disruption to supply is an inconvenience to customers," said Mr Stevenson. "This work was important to ensure customers have a reliable supply."
He said Powerco notified electricity retailers with details of the scheduled outage. "It is normal for retailers to pass this information on to their customers."
In amongst the discontent over the outages, several Facebook users praised the Tenix contractors for their hard work restoring the lines.
"I hope every single one of those men enjoy their extra pay for being out there on a Sunday," said Alix Cooper.