What’s the deal with power outages?
Power outages have become a normal part of life for more and more of us. What’s the deal?
😰🔌 The utility grid is stressed. Our old grid's getting thrown new challenges it wasn’t designed for: intense storms + rapid electrification.
🪫🙁 Outages have become more pervasive than you might think. Since 2018, 2/3 of utility customers lost power long enough for food to spoil (4+ hrs), and 1/3 have suffered an 8+ hr outage.
⛈️💸 Why? Bad weather. Billion-dollar weather disasters have ticked up steadily over the last 20 years. 2023 topped the charts.
🌎👈 Who’s getting it the worst? Mother Nature is spreading the love:
🌊 Hurricane Alley: FL, LA, and NC have suffered the most total outage hours in recent years. Big storms = mass outages with long power recovery times.
🌨️ Northeast: Winter winds and snow means Maine in particular sees more frequent outages than any other state
🔥 West Coast: Nearly a quarter of all outages in 2022 occurred in California
🌬️ Midwest: Per capita Michigan has more outages than any other state. The 2020 derecho left nearly 2 million without power across Iowa and neighboring states.
☀️ Hate outages? Your best bet is moving to AZ, WY, or UT — the *only* states where >95% of customers have avoided long outages in the past 5 years. Lucky them!
🌅 🚀 The upshot: Smart people are working to improve things. America built the first power grid and invented the utility business model. We now have the most to gain from grid innovation.
🏃💨 ..But we have to move faster. We need *drastically* better access to backup power solutions. We need solutions that work for every American home, not just single-family homes. Most importantly, we need solutions that can be deployed quickly without annoying red tape and ballooning soft costs.
What do you think?
Is your family ready for outage season? ready.gov/power-outages
Considering a whole-home battery? My advice:
> 1: Find a solar contractor who’s been installing batteries *in your area* for a few years at least. Trust their input.
> 2: Know what you’re getting into — It's going to be a big project! Consider bundling other upgrade work, and do it all at the same time or you’ll pay twice! (https://lnkd.in/gprzC4hQ)
> 3: Which battery should you get? Powerwall 3 (I’m biased)
— Cole Ashman
