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The latest major power outage, caused by Isais in early October, affected nearly one million customers.  A week later, nearly 80,000 customers remained without service.[1]  This report provides information about the frequency, damage, and costs of electricity outages.  It also outlines system-wide and household options for reducing the costs of these service interruptions.

Outages are increasing in frequency.  The US. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports on the minutes of non-momentary interruptions, per year, the average customer experiences.  From 2014 to 2024 (the latest year reported), this number grew in fits and starts from 236.2 minutes to 662.6 minutes (more than 11 hours).[2]

There was wide variation among states.  Because of Helene, in 2024 the average South Carolina customer lost 3,136.5 minutes (more than 52 hours) while the average Maine customer lost 1,748.6 minutes.  Customers residing on or near the coast from Maine to Florida then around to Texas tended to lose the most minutes.[3]

Outages impose significant costs.  A 2025 effort by economists to quantify annual economic costs arrived at an estimate between $79 billion and $150 billion.[4]  A study by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Lab estimated these costs in 2024 at $121 billion.[5]  Most of these estimated losses were commercial, including downtime and cloud/data infrastructure interruptions.  A significant percentage represented industrial losses, such as halted assembly lines and damaged new materials.  A very small percentage of the economic losses were residential, including spoiled food, temporary relocation, and lost hourly wages.  Yet, especially to individual households with limited financial resources, such economic losses are often difficult to absorb.

Outages also impose negative health consequences.  According to a study of 50 articles published between 2004 and 2020, these outage-related health impacts range from carbon monoxide poisoning, temperature-related illness, gastrointestinal illness, and mortality to all-cause, cardiovascular, respiratory, and renal disease hospitalizations, especially for individuals relying on electricity-dependent medical equipment.[6]  Especially at risk are the millions of households dependent on this equipment, including ventilators, heart, CPAP, and dialysis machines, at home.  A striking example is the impact of the failure of the Texas grid in 2018, which deprived most residents of electricity for an average of 42 hours.  The State estimated 151 related deaths while another source estimated more than 700 deaths.[7]

Beyond these physical impacts are the psychological and social effects of loss of electricity suffered by individuals and families.  Lives are disrupted, stress levels rise, and especially during prolonged outages with severe weather, anxiety about surviving grows.

A 2010 report by the Department of Energy and an industry group dramatically described the impact of a widespread, extended blackout:  “The supply of food, water and fuel would degrade within days.  The facile communication of information to the general population would be greatly complicated by the loss of cellphones, internet access and television.  The economy would virtually shut down as electronic transactions could no longer be processed.  After several days, widespread social unrest and confusion would ensue.”[8]

A large majority of outages are weather-related.  Four-fifths of U.S. power outages reported from 2000 to 2023 were related to this factor.  Severe weather – such as high winds, rain, and thunderstorms – caused 58 percent of weather-related outages; winter weather caused 23 percent; tropical cyclones including hurricanes caused 14 percent; extreme heat caused three percent, and wildfires caused about two percent.  Because of recent increases in heat and wildfires, the last two percentages have likely increased.[9]

Other factors related to power outages include human-caused equipment failure, wildlife interference, vehicle accidents, excavation and digging, overloaded grids, theft, and planned maintenance.

Future increases in demand for power that the current system cannot meet have been predicted.  A 2026 U.S. Department of Energy analysis concluded that “if current retirement schedules and incremental additions remain unchanged, most regions will face unacceptable reliability risks within five years and the Nation’s electrical power grid will be unable to meet expected demand for AI, data centers, manufacturing and industrialization while keeping the costs of living low for all Americans.”[10]  Analysis by a major consulting firm concluded that “reliability risks are rising as spare capacity shrinks” with several regions “already at resource adequacy minimums.”[11]

The increasing demand for electricity from data centers has received much attention.  Just as serious, though, are problems related to aging equipment and equipment backlogs.  Especially critical is a shortage of gas turbines, breakers, and transformers.[12]

Experts are increasingly concerned about the security of the electrical system.  According to an analysis of Department of Energy data, the number of physical and cyber attacks or threats against the electric grid, reported by utilities, rose from an average of under 50 from 2015 to 2017 to 185 in 2023.  A few individuals, some of whom belong to militant groups, have succeeded in knocking out substation transformers with rifle fire.  For example, a shooting attack against two North Carolina substations in 2022 cut off power to 45,000 customers for four days.[13]  Foreign actors with far more resources could do much more damage.  This threat is heightened by the fact that there is a serious transformer shortage with heavy U.S. dependence on manufacturers outside the country.[14]  People with disabilities (45.8 million), those reliant on in-home medical machines (2.9 million), and the elderly (61 million over 65) are disproportionately negatively affected.

There is a growing consensus that a top priority should be emphasis on energy resilience – the ability of an energy system to withstand, absorb, and quickly recover from severe, non-routine disruptions.  This goal can be best attained by continued progress in user self-sufficiency through improvements in energy efficiency, reliance on one’s own power sources, and battery storage of this power.[15]  Unmet needs can be met in part by creating local micro-grids – blended on-site energy and storage systems — in which power can be produced, stored, and shared.[16]  In the U.S., there are nearly 692 installed microgrids with a total capacity of nearly 4.4 gigawatts (GW).[17]  Moreover, interest in microgrids is growing in part because of their ability to sustain electricity service during natural disasters.  One expert predicts that by 2030, there could be more than 20 GW in installed microgrid capacity.[18]  A future CPC report will explore this option more fully.

[1] Lara Cooper, “Isaias Leaves Massive Power Outages in Path as Storm Tracks Through U.S. Southeast,” Direct Relief (October 9, 2026).  Data from PowerOutage.com.

[2] Table 11.1: Reliability Metrics of U.S. Distribution System, Form EIA-861, Annual Electric Power Industry Report, U.S. Energy Information Administration.

[3] Table 11.3, Op. Cit.

[4] Archana Ghodeswar et. al.  “Quantifying the economic costs of power outages owing to extreme events:  A systematic review,” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, ScienceDirect (January 2025).

[5] “Analysis shows power outages cost us electricity customers billions,” Oak Ridge National Lab (March 4, 2026).

[6] Joan A. Casey et. al., “Power outages and community health: a narrative review,” Current Environmental Health Report (November 2020).

[7] Amanda Salazar, “Preventing Power Failures That Kill Hundreds of Americans,” DCReport (October 16, 2021).

[8] High-Impact, Low-Frequency Event Risk to the North American Bulk Power System.  U.S. Department of Energy and North American Electric Reliability Corporation report (June 2010).

[9] “Weather-related Power Outages Rising,” Climate Central (April 24, 2024).

[10] Report on Evaluating U.S. Grid Reliability and Security, U.S. Department of Energy (July 7, 2025).

[11] “Electricity Demand Growth: How Will the Grid Keep Pace?”  ICF (June 2026).

[12] Brian Martucci, “Transformer, break backlogs persist, despite reshoring progress,” UtilityDive (May 29, 2025).

[13] Catherine Morehouse, “Tensions at home and abroad pose growing threat to US grid,” E&E News by POLITICO (April 8, 2024).

[14] Christopher Cox, “The Blackout That Could Devastate America,” The New York Times Magazine (August 18, 2026).  See also: “Transformer shortage an increasing concern in the US,” Smart Energy International (August 17, 2025).

[15] See:  Clark Savage, “U.S. utilities and grid operators are urging households to prepare for tighter electricity supplies, possible rolling blackouts during extreme weather, and new risks from large loads like data centers,” Energy News Beat (September 7, 2026).  “Outages on the rise in the U.S.,” Energy Professionals (October 15, 2018).  Distributed Energy Can Unleash the Resilient, Affordable Grid of the Future, The Pew Charitable Trusts (April 28, 2026).

[16] Hardened substations, backup generation, advanced sensors, and smart infrastructure that can identify faults and keep loads online are also essential.  Elizabeth Harnett et. al., “Power Outages Cost More Than We Account for,” RMI (January 5, 2026).

[17] “Microgrids At-a-glance,” Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (downloaded 10/23/26).

[18]  Bob Wieska, “Technological Turning Point: Energy Resilience,” linkedin.com (June 17, 2025).