Whether you buy into the idea of extreme climate change or not, our climate is always changing. It’s often hotly debated and politicized as to how much man has to do with the process, but we can all agree, weather-related power outages are on the rise as the population grows, power grids age and fail, while extreme weather becomes more common. And here’s the data to prove it.
Between 2000 and 2021, about 83% of reported major outages (events with 50,000 homes or more without power) in the U.S. were caused by weather-related events, according to Climate Central. Also, the average annual number of weather-related power outages increased by roughly 78% during 2011-2021, compared to 2000-2010.
From 2000-2021, there were 1,542 weather related power outages. Most were caused by winter weather (22%), tropical storms (15%) and other severe weather (58%). Most of the activity has been hampering the Southeast, Midwest and Northeast. As for individual states with the most outages, Texas, Michigan, California, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. As for exact numbers of events effecting 50,000 or more homes, Texas (180), Michigan (132), California (129), North Carolina (97), and Pennsylvania (82)—all of which are ranked among the top 10 in populous states in the country.
(Graph Courtesy Climate Central)
What Have We Learned?
The Power Grid Is Vulnerable! We all depend on the electrical power grid to serve our homes and businesses, but the system is not perfect and vulnerable to large-scale outages caused by natural events like hurricanes, ice storms, flooding, heat waves and of course human-caused fires and naturally occurring wildfires.
Let’s face it, like our roads and bridges, the infrastructure and power grid need to be constantly upgraded to deal with larger energy demand and more frequent and intensifying storms, according to Climate Central. Our nation’s aging electrical infrastructure is stressed!
Think of this way. A heat wave means more residents will be running their AC to keep cool, while a powerline fails in high winds, setting fire to a power supply station and surrounding hills, forest, communities—you have a perfect storm—more demand for power and a compromised power supply. The old, current power grid wasn’t designed to meet the demands of today’s larger population as everybody charges their cell phones daily, more and more powered equipment like computers and TVs, while millions are recharging electric cars… let alone the challenges of extreme weather!
What Can You Do?
Besides the obvious standard practices like conserving energy, you can also be proactive to avoid an outage at your home or place of business. Investing in a whole home or commercial generator that runs on diesel fuel, natural gas or propane means you’ll have power while your neighbors, or better, your business competitions are feeling powerless.
Generator Source and Generator Mart can help you with a perfectly matched generator for your home or business power needs. Generator Mart offers home options portable generators that will also work for camping applications when you need to power a few appliances or on the worksite to power tools. Generator Mart also offer larger standby units for the home that not only can power your entire home, but also add value and equity to one of your largest investments, your property.
Generator Source specializes in industrial and commercial generators in the 20 kW to 4,000 kW range to power everything from your small business to a large hospital. We are experts in the field with 40+ years of experience analyzing your power needs and pairing you with the power to help you push on, never missing a beat, no matter what the power company throws at you. Unless a generator is disconnected or under water—it will supply power as your competition sits idle in the dark—powerless!
Contact Generator Source at (844) 295-0422 or (
720) 990-5640 and let’s talk about your power needs to avoid the next outage. If you are looking for a power options to keep the homestead running, contact
Generator Mart at (877) 363-0349.
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