State · EIA Form 861 · MT
Montana
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's EIA Form 861, SAIDI and SAIFI for Montana utilities come from the federal annual survey. 7 utilities report reliability metrics; figures are customer-weighted state averages, not a guarantee for any single address.
Signature read: short chronic outage minutes relative to the 51-state Form 861 cohort (<=156 min tercile cut).
EIA Form 861 · Continuity Brief
Montana
EIA Form 861 Continuity Brief · August 2026 · IEEE 1366 SAIDI/SAIFI minutes, not a storm forecast.
Montana sits in the lower-third SAIDI band at 118.7 minutes across 7 reporting utilities (NorthWestern Energy LLC - (MT) lowest at 102.5), under the live national mean of 341.
Named SAIDI peers (in-state best + nearest-state averages)
State SAIDI neighbourhood (minutes / customer-year)
- Montana 118.7
- Utah 118.7
- Oregon 121.5
- New York 122.0
- Minnesota 126.7
- New Jersey 108.3
Lower is fewer interruption minutes. Neighbours are nearest other-state averages in this corpus.
Montana vs all states by EIA Form 861 utility headcount
Where this state's reporting utility count sits among every state in the Form 861 file (coverage density, not reliability quality)
7 Top 75% more reporting utilities than 25% of 51 states
States, banded by electric utilities reporting on EIA Form 861
Each bar is a band; taller bars hold more states. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count and share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source EIA Form 861 · 2026-08-30
Utilities Ranked by Reliability · Montana short-outage cohort
All 7 electric utilities in Montana with reliability data, sorted by 2023 SAIDI; statewide average sits in the lower-third Form 861 band.
Lowest-SAIDI utilities in Montana
Fewest outage minutes · live table sort
Top 7 Montana utilities by fewest outage minutes. Lower SAIDI is better - not a quality score beyond interruption duration.
Lowest-SAIDI utilities in Montana
| # | Utility | Type | SAIDI 2023 | SAIFI 2023 | Customers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NorthWestern Energy LLC - (MT) | IOU | 102.5 | 0.93 | 401,963 |
| 2 | Montana-Dakota Utilities Co | IOU | 112.4 | 1.29 | 93,947 |
| 3 | Black Hills Power, Inc. | IOU | 142.9 | 1.40 | 73,367 |
| 4 | Flathead Electric Coop Inc | Cooperative | 160.5 | 1.62 | 74,239 |
| 5 | Missoula Electric Coop, Inc | Cooperative | 165.2 | 1.19 | 16,258 |
| 6 | Lower Yellowstone R E A, Inc | Cooperative | 260.2 | 1.36 | 5,171 |
| 7 | Fergus Electric Coop, Inc | Cooperative | 390.5 | - | 6,911 |
Nationwide states with similar utility inventory or customer scale
Cross-state peer sets for Montana (lower-third SAIDI band). Nearest-SAIDI neighbors stay in Read-with; these neighborhoods compare EIA Form 861 headcount and summed customer accounts.
Similar utility headcount
Nearest states by reporting utility count (7 here).
Similar customer scale
Nearest states by summed customer accounts (672K here), excluding the headcount peer set.
Read with this Montana roster · short-outage band
- Lowest published SAIDI in Montana: NorthWestern Energy LLC - (MT) (102.5 min)
- Highest published SAIDI in Montana: Fergus Electric Coop, Inc (390.5 min)
- Ownership mix here: Cooperative leads (4 of 7 utilities) · national type means
- Nearest avg SAIDI: Utah (118.7 min)
- Nearest avg SAIDI: Oregon (121.5 min)
- Nearest avg SAIDI: New York (122.0 min)
- Nearest avg SAIDI: Minnesota (126.7 min)
- Nearest avg SAIDI: New Jersey (108.3 min)
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Form 861 Annual Electric Power Industry Report, reliability · 2020-2023 State averages are rebuilt from utility filings in this portal DB; corpus ranks use headcount and customer sums.