Data Sources & Methodology
PowerOutageTracker combines public U.S. government data into one calm, readable view of the power grid. Here is exactly where each number comes from, how we process it, and what its limits are.
Live outages
Customers without power by county, published in near-real time by utilities participating in the Outage Data Initiative Nationwide (ODIN), led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the DOE Office of Electricity. We refresh every few minutes. Right now 63 utilities in 29 states are reporting.
Reliability & uptime
State-level SAIDI, SAIFI and CAIDI for 2015–2025 from the EIA Electric Power Annual (Tables 11.2 and 11.4, IEEE method). Utility-level reliability, customer counts and county service territories come from Form EIA-861 (2025).
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Form EIA-861 & Electric Power Annual
Severe weather
Active NWS alerts that commonly cause outages: tornado, severe thunderstorm, hurricane and tropical storm, high wind, winter storm, ice storm, blizzard, extreme heat and cold, red flag and flash flood. Each alert is mapped to counties using its SAME codes.
Source: National Weather Service (NOAA)
Space weather
Current NOAA geomagnetic storm scale (G1–G5), the 3-day G-scale outlook, and the planetary K-index.
Cyber advisories
CISA industrial control system advisories that list the Energy critical-infrastructure sector. These are vulnerability disclosures, not reports of attacks.
Geography & search
County boundaries (us-atlas / Census cartographic files), the 2020 ZCTA-to-county relationship file for ZIP search, and Census population estimates for city lookups.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Coverage and limitations
ODIN is voluntary. Many large utilities don't yet participate, so our live totals undercount national outages. To avoid a misleading zero, a state with no participating utility is labeled Limited data instead of No reported outages. Where possible we estimate coverage as the share of a state's EIA-861 customers served by utilities that report to ODIN. Utility-reported counts can lag reality, and estimated restoration times come from the utilities themselves.
Outage levels
State shading uses the percentage of the state's electricity customers (EIA-861 2025) without power. County shading uses the number of customers out, because county customer counts are not published.
| Level | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Normal | No outages, or fewer than 0.01% of customers out (routine, scattered outages) |
| Minor | 0.01%–0.1% of customers without power |
| Moderate | 0.1%–1% of customers without power |
| Major | 1%–5% of customers without power |
| Severe | 5% or more of customers without power |
| Limited data | No participating utility shares live data here yet |
Reliability metrics, explained
- SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index): total minutes without power for the average customer in a year.
- SAIFI (System Average Interruption Frequency Index): how many sustained outages (over 5 minutes) the average customer had.
- CAIDI (Customer Average Interruption Duration Index): average restoration time per outage (SAIDI ÷ SAIFI).
- Uptime: our derived share of the year with power, 1 − SAIDI ÷ 525,600 minutes.
- Major event days are days whose outage time exceeds a statistical threshold (IEEE 1366). We show figures both with and without them.
History
Every 30 minutes we save a snapshot of national and state totals. That powers the 7-day trend charts and the daily peaks in /api/v1/history.
Free JSON & CSV API
No key required. CORS enabled. Please cache responses and attribute PowerOutageTracker.com.
| Endpoint | Returns |
|---|---|
| /api/v1/live | Current outages for every state plus every affected county (JSON). |
| /api/v1/states/texas | One state: live status, affected counties and EIA reliability history (JSON). Replace texas with any state slug. |
| /api/v1/outages.csv | Current outages by county (CSV). |
| /api/v1/history | Recent 30-minute history and daily peaks, when available (JSON). |
| /api/v1/live/summary | Compact payload used by our live maps (JSON). |
How to cite us
Our derived data and charts are licensed under CC BY 4.0. Underlying federal data is in the public domain. Suggested citation:
PowerOutageTracker. "Live U.S. Power Outage Map." Data from DOE/ORNL ODIN and EIA-861. Accessed November 2, 2026. https://poweroutagetracker.com/
Journalists and researchers: see a state's page (for example Texas power outages) for a page-specific citation, or contact us for corrections.