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According to a Department of Energy report, as reported by US News [1], in 2023 California ranked #37 for "the number of minutes of power outages the average cu
by leereeves 2y ago
According to a Department of Energy report, as reported by US News [1], in 2023 California ranked #37 for "the number of minutes of power outages the average customer experiences in a year". Texas was much better at #28.
People probably think otherwise because of availability bias, after that multi day outage that made headlines nationwide a few years ago. (In the same way that people overestimate the danger of plane crashes because they're rare but dramatic.)
1: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/infrastructure/energy/power-grid-reliability https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/infrastruct...
- while_true_ 2y agoThe DoE report on California is skewed by rural areas that suffer outages due to wildfires and winter storms. There have been no extended outages that effect large cities on the scale of Houston.
- leereeves 2y agoDo outages not count if they affect people in rural areas? Perhaps not, because they don't get reported. Anyway, I'm not saying Texas' grid is great. It isn't. But California is well below average in power reliability. > In the last several years the state has increased generation capacity, greatly increased renewables, and improved grid reliability. It must have been truly terrible before.