The average American electric customer experienced 7.6 hours of “non-momentary” power outages last year, the second-highest total in recent years, according to a metric that utilities use to gauge reliability. That number can swing dramatically from year to year, depending upon major storm events.
The national average hit its peak for the last decade in 2017 when Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria knocked out many customers in New England and Southern states. Outages in 2020 were nearly as severe partly caused by Hurricane Isaias in August and a derecho in June. New Jersey customers experienced an average of 15.7 hours without power last year. In Pennsylvania, the average customer was out 5.9 hours last year.