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Data report · World Bank and CEER

Which Countries Have the Most Reliable Electricity?

Data: World Bank Doing Business 2020 and Business Ready 2025, and the 7th CEER-ECRB Benchmarking Report. Figures are shown separately because they measure different things. Methodology on our data page.

Among economies with published data, Japan, South Korea and Singapore had the fewest hours without power in their largest business cities, and Papua New Guinea had the most. No current national table exists for every country, so we show three official datasets separately and don't merge them into one ranking.

Read these with care. The World Bank figures describe one city in 2018, and the indicator has since been discontinued. A further 42 economies published no figures, including Nigeria, Bangladesh and Iraq, so they can't appear in a "most outages" list even where outages are severe. The European figures are national but stop at 2018.

Most reliable electricity

Largest business city, 2018, utility reported. Lower is better.

Economies with the fewest hours without power in their largest business city, 2018
CountryHours without power / yrInterruptions / yr
Japan0.040.02
South Korea0.040.05
Singapore0.060.11
Qatar0.070.04
Liechtenstein0.080.01
Kuwait0.100.42
Slovenia0.130.27
St. Lucia0.180.34
Russia0.180.05
Finland0.200.16
Switzerland0.200.18
Uzbekistan0.220.08
Germany0.250.30
United Arab Emirates0.250.24
Taiwan, China0.270.23

Most hours without power

Largest business city, 2018, among economies that published figures

Economies with the most hours without power in their largest business city, 2018
CountryHours without power / yrInterruptions / yr
Papua New Guinea940500
Palau6168.90
Maldives1682.52
Niger165288
Guyana113106
Nicaragua9446
Pakistan9082
Togo8136
Mozambique8030
Sierra Leone6225
Mongolia6215
Uganda6250
Ghana5636
Zambia514.91
Eswatini4929

Countries we track

The same 2018 city-level figures for the countries we track in depth. Each country page has more recent national data.

City-level reliability for countries tracked on this site, 2018
CountryHours without power / yrInterruptions / yr
United Kingdom0.280.14
Ireland0.800.57
Canada0.981.48
Australia1.000.60
United States1.280.38
New Zealand3.772.14
South Africa315.98

Source: World Bank, Doing Business 2020: Getting Electricity indicator set (DB16-20 methodology) — historical data, complete dataset with scores. City-level values can differ widely from national ones: London is listed at 17 minutes, while Great Britain's national figure in the European data below is about 43 minutes.

Europe: national figures

Minutes lost per customer in unplanned interruptions, all events, national regulators, latest year 2018

CountryMinutes lost / yrInterruptions / yr
Germany160.27
Denmark170.44
Switzerland180.30
Luxembourg240.35
Belgium260.63
Netherlands270.41
Austria310.66
Georgia3319.61
Cyprus390.25
Great Britain430.51
Finland491.52
Spain591.26
Malta691.87
Slovenia781.74
Hungary790.99
Lithuania821.10
Italy1012.14
Latvia1051.93
Czech Republic1151.79
Norway1261.97
Sweden1271.49
Estonia1301.37
Poland1432.58
Greece1732.33
Croatia1882.33
Portugal2011.90
Ireland2121.71
Serbia4416.00
Romania4634.32
Moldova5055.40
Ukraine1,0548.25
Montenegro1,91228.88

Source: 7th CEER-ECRB Benchmarking Report on the Quality of Electricity and Gas Supply (Ref C22-EQS-103-03), Annex B tables A1, A2, A3, A8, A9, A10. Definitions still vary between national regulators.

Most outages reported by businesses

Survey answers from firms, World Bank Business Ready 2025. This covers some countries the city data can't.

CountryOutages per month
Central African Republic28.3
Mali26.6
Bangladesh26.2
Pakistan22
Chad15.9
Nepal13.6
Congo, Dem. Rep.11.6
Cameroon10.4
Papua New Guinea10
Congo, Rep.9
Burkina Faso8
Benin7.8
Gambia, The7.6
West Bank and Gaza6.4
Madagascar6.3

Source: World Bank, Business Ready 2025 data package (economy answers and topic scores). Covers 101 economies.

Lowest access to electricity

Where the question isn't outages but whether people are connected at all

CountryPopulation with access, 2024
South Sudan5.4%
Chad13.4%
Malawi15.6%
Central African Republic18.2%
Burundi20.1%
Niger21.3%
Congo, Dem. Rep.22.5%
Burkina Faso34.0%
Liberia34.9%
Mozambique36.9%

Source: World Bank, Access to electricity (% of population), EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS; urban EG.ELC.ACCS.UR.ZS; rural EG.ELC.ACCS.RU.ZS

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Cite this page

You may reuse our derived data under CC BY 4.0 with attribution. Check each source's licence before reusing its data.

PowerOutageTracker.com. "Which Countries Have the Most Reliable Electricity?." Accessed World Bank and CEER data. https://poweroutagetracker.com/reports/electricity-reliability-by-country