How Reliable Is Your
Electric Utility?
See average outage minutes (SAIDI) and outage frequency (SAIFI) for the utility serving your address — drawn directly from the EIA Form 861 annual industry survey. Refreshed each EIA release.
plainutility surfaces leakage rates for 4,100 US municipal water utilities — Texas cities leak 35% of supply, California 22% — with affordability scores tied to median household income.
Compare outage frequency and duration for 918+ utilities across all 50 states. SAIDI and SAIFI data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Most Reliable Utilities
View allLowest SAIDI (fewest outage minutes per year) — utilities serving 10,000+ customers
Least Reliable Utilities
View allHighest SAIDI (most outage minutes per year) — utilities serving 10,000+ customers
Understanding Outage Metrics
Utilities report two key reliability metrics to the federal government every year. Here's what they mean.
Measures the total average minutes per year a customer experiences outages. A SAIDI of 120 means the average customer loses power for 2 hours per year. Lower is better.
Measures how many times per year the average customer experiences a power outage. A SAIFI of 1.5 means the average customer has 1.5 outages annually. Lower is better.
Browse by State
View all statesLearn About Electric Utility Reliability
From understanding outage metrics to finding the most reliable utility in your area, our guides help you make sense of power reliability data.
Minutes without power per year
Day-to-day infrastructure reliability
Power interruptions per year
Frequently Asked Questions
What is SAIDI and why does it matter?
SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index) measures the total average minutes per year a customer experiences power outages. Lower SAIDI = more reliable. It's the standard metric utilities report to the EIA, making it the best apples-to-apples comparison across utilities and states.
What does "without major event days" mean?
SAIDI "without major event days" (also called SAIDI-nMED) excludes outages caused by major storms, hurricanes, and other catastrophic events. It better reflects a utility's day-to-day infrastructure reliability vs. its vulnerability to extreme weather. Both metrics are shown on utility detail pages.
Where does this data come from?
All reliability data is from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Form 861 annual electric power industry survey. Utilities are legally required to file this data each year. ZIP code to utility mapping comes from OpenEI's utility rate database.
Why aren't all utilities included?
Reliability reporting (SAIDI/SAIFI) is voluntary in the EIA-861 survey. While most major utilities report, some smaller municipals and co-ops may not file reliability data every year. We display data for all {stats?.utilities_with_reliability?.toLocaleString()} utilities that filed reliability metrics.
Related Guides
Editorial context for the plainutility dataset — methodology, comparisons, and deep dives into the underlying records.
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How Weather Affects the Power Grid
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The Most (and Least) Reliable Electric Utilities in America
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Top US States by Average SAIDI
Lower bars = fewer outage minutes per customer per year. Live from the EIA Form 861 dataset — every state's SAIDI computed across all reporting utilities in that state.
Best-reliability states (avg SAIDI minutes/year)
See the full ranking on /rankings/most-reliable or compare against the worst at /rankings/worst-outages.