Why Power Outages Are Getting Longer—and How Smart, Green Tech Can Fix It

Power outages in the U.S. are quietly getting longer. According to J.D. Power, the average length of the longest outage jumped from 8.1 hours in 2022 to 12.8 hours by mid‑2025. In the South, customers hit by extreme events reported average outages of 18.2 hours—and in some disasters, well over 90 hours without electricity.

This isn’t a weird blip in the data. It’s the new normal for a grid under stress from extreme weather and aging infrastructure. And it’s forcing cities, utilities, and businesses to rethink how they design resilience—fast.

Here’s the thing about these longer blackouts: they’re not just an inconvenience. They’re a direct threat to safety, economic productivity, and decarbonization goals. Yet the solutions that actually work—green technology plus smart data and automation—are often treated as “nice to have” upgrades instead of core infrastructure.

This post breaks down why outages are getting longer, how customer expectations are shifting, and where AI-powered green technology can realistically shorten outages, cut emissions, and protect your operations.

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The real reason power outages are getting longer

Power outages are getting longer because extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more severe, and the grid wasn’t built for this climate.

J.D. Power’s U.S. Electric Utility Residential Customer Satisfaction Study (first half of 2025) highlights a few numbers that tell the story:

• 45% of utility customers experienced at least one outage in early 2025.
• Nearly half of those outages were linked directly to extreme weather: hurricanes, snowstorms, tornadoes, wildfires.
• 17% of affected customers said the disaster was severe enough that they had to evacuate.

At the same time, something interesting is happening:

A growing share of customers report “perfect power” (no interruptions at all), while the subset that does experience outages is seeing longer and more frequent events.

So reliability looks fine on average, but for people in the path of a major event, the experience is much worse.

Why extreme weather hurts grid recovery

When an extreme storm hits, the grid doesn’t just lose a few lines:

• Wind and ice can take out entire corridors of transmission and distribution lines.
• Flooding and storm surge can damage substations and transformers that aren’t easily replaced.
• Wildfires can burn poles, equipment, and vegetation management zones across large areas.

All of that adds up to complex, multi-day restoration instead of a simple “flip a switch” event. Crews have to:

• Assess damage across huge territories
• Safely isolate faults
• Coordinate with emergency responders and transportation agencies
• Replace large equipment that may have long lead times

Now layer in an older grid, workforce shortages, and more often than not, outdated monitoring and control systems. That’s why the average “biggest outage” is stretching into half a day or more—and why some communities see outages measured in days.

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Why customers are reacting differently: from tolerance to expectations

Longer outages aren’t just a technical issue—they’re a behavioral and business risk.

J.D. Power’s research shows that the percentage of customers interested in a backup solution is approaching two‑thirds. That’s massive. It tells you customers are no longer assuming the grid will always be there for them.

Remote work has changed the stakes

Before 2020, a 5–10 minute outage might not get noticed. Now:

• People are on video calls and cloud apps all day.
• Home offices depend on always‑on Wi‑Fi and power.
• Small outages can crash unsaved work, interrupt business, or knock out POS systems.

J.D. Power notes that customers are reporting more frequent short blackouts as well. Part of that is awareness—people simply notice more now—but part of it is real: utilities are increasingly using protective devices and automated reclosers that cause momentary outages to prevent bigger failures.

The result is a “reliability paradox”:

• System reliability (overall uptime) is improving for many customers.
• Perceived reliability for those who experience outages is getting worse—especially when their “longest outage” keeps getting longer.

Communication is a silent differentiator

One detail from the report that I think is underrated: the South has some of the longest outages but the highest customer satisfaction.

Why? Because utilities there score higher on:

• Safety
• Reliability (within context)
• Trust
• Digital experience and communication

Roughly 57% of customers say their utility is the most responsible entity for electric safety education, and the South leads in customers receiving pre‑disaster preparation messages by text.

When power is out for 24–96 hours, clear communication isn’t a “nice extra”—it’s the difference between trust and anger.

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How green technology can shorten outages and cut risk

Longer power outages driven by extreme weather won’t reverse themselves. The only credible path forward is building a smarter, cleaner, more distributed grid. That’s where green technology and AI really start to matter.

1. Distributed energy resources as a resilience layer

Solar, batteries, and other distributed energy resources (DERs) are no longer just climate tools—they’re resilience tools.

When they’re connected and managed intelligently, DERs can:

• Keep critical loads running when the central grid goes down (microgrids, campus systems, community resilience hubs).
• Reduce stress on damaged parts of the grid during restoration by covering some local demand.
• Support black start and restoration by providing local generation when big plants are offline.

Concrete examples that work today:

• Solar + storage at schools and community centers so they can act as cooling centers, charging hubs, or evacuation shelters.
• Commercial microgrids for hospitals, data centers, and manufacturing plants to keep operations running during prolonged outages.
• Neighborhood‑scale battery systems that absorb peak loads and provide local backup for medically vulnerable residents.

2. AI-powered grid intelligence and predictive maintenance

A lot of outage duration comes down to one thing: speed of awareness and response.

AI and advanced analytics can substantially cut that time by:

• Predicting failure risks before storms using weather, vegetation, asset age, and historical fault data.
• Optimizing vegetation management, targeting the exact lines most likely to be hit by falling branches.
• Automating fault detection and isolation so the system reroutes power in seconds, not hours.
• Guiding crew deployment using geospatial analytics to prioritize the highest-impact repairs.

Utilities that take this seriously are already using:

• High‑resolution satellite imagery + AI to flag weak spots.
• Digital twins of their networks to run “what if” storm and wildfire scenarios.
• Machine learning to predict which transformers, poles, or feeders are high‑risk before the next event.

The payoff: shorter outages, fewer customers affected, and lower repair costs—all while enabling higher levels of clean energy on the grid.

3. Smart buildings and load flexibility

Outages are only one side of the story. The other side is how buildings behave before, during, and after grid stress.

Smart, efficient buildings and campuses can:

• Pre‑cool or pre‑heat before a storm so they ride through short or partial outages more comfortably.
• Shift non‑critical loads away from high‑risk times, lightening the strain on weak parts of the grid.
• Island with on‑site solar, batteries, or CHP systems if the wider network fails.

From a green technology perspective, the ideal state looks like this:

• Buildings are highly efficient, so backup power stretches further.
• On‑site renewables paired with storage carry critical systems through an outage.
• AI‑driven energy management systems coordinate with utilities to provide grid services when available and autonomous resilience when not.

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What cities, utilities, and businesses can do now

Most organizations know the grid is under pressure. Very few have a clear, prioritized plan for what to do about it. Here’s a practical breakdown.

For cities and local governments

Local leaders don’t control the bulk grid, but they do control planning, zoning, and community priorities. The cities that will weather the next decade best are doing three things:

1. Designating and equipping resilience hubs

   • Identify schools, libraries, and community centers in flood‑safe, accessible locations.
   • Add solar + storage and basic microgrid capabilities.
   • Build them into emergency plans for cooling, heating, charging, and shelter.

2. Requiring resilience in new developments

   • Encourage or mandate EV‑ready wiring, solar‑ready roofs, and battery‑ready electrical rooms.
   • Update codes to support islandable microgrids in key districts (medical, industrial, data, logistics).

3. Investing in data and coordination

   • Establish data‑sharing agreements with utilities around outage patterns and vulnerable customers.
   • Coordinate early on communication strategies for storm seasons, including multi‑language alerts.

For utilities

Utilities are already under intense regulatory and financial pressure, but waiting for the perfect policy environment is a mistake. Practical steps that align reliability and decarbonization:

• Modernize monitoring and control
  Upgrade SCADA, sensors, and communication systems so operators can see and isolate faults in real time.

• Turn DERs into grid assets, not problems
  Build programs and platforms that treat customer‑owned solar, batteries, and EVs as dispatchable resources during emergencies.

• Use AI where it actually reduces risk
  Focus on vegetation, asset health, storm forecasting, and crew logistics—areas with direct impact on outage duration.

• Communicate like a modern consumer brand
  Proactive texts, simple outage maps, clear preparation checklists, and honest ETAs go a long way in maintaining trust—especially in regions where outages are inevitable.

For businesses and facility owners

If you run a critical facility or a revenue‑sensitive site, long outages are no longer just “a utility problem.” They’re a business continuity problem you can quantify in real money.

Here’s a simple playbook I recommend:

1. Quantify outage risk and impact

   • Look at your last 3–5 years of outage history.
   • Estimate the hourly cost of downtime: revenue loss, lost production, labor, reputational impact.

2. Prioritize loads

   • Classify systems into critical (life safety, data, security), important (operations, comfort), and deferrable (non‑essential processes).

3. Design a tiered resilience strategy

   • Start with efficiency upgrades so every backup kWh goes further.
   • Add solar + storage sized to your critical load first.
   • Integrate with a smart building EMS that can shed non‑essential load automatically during events.

4. Look for value streams beyond emergencies

   • Use your batteries and controllable loads for demand response or peak shaving.
   • That extra revenue or savings can materially improve the ROI of your resilience investments.

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Where green technology and AI fit in the bigger climate story

Longer outages caused by extreme weather are not just an operational headache; they’re a signal. The climate is shifting faster than legacy infrastructure can adapt, and traditional reliability strategies alone won’t keep up.

Green technology—renewables, storage, smart buildings, EVs—paired with AI and data‑driven control gives cities and businesses a way to reduce emissions and boost resilience at the same time. That alignment matters. It’s how we avoid the false choice between decarbonization and reliability.

The reality? Smarter, cleaner systems are no longer optional add‑ons. They’re the backbone of a grid that can survive 2020s‑era storms and still support economic growth.

If your organization is still treating resilience as a checklist item instead of a strategic investment, this is the moment to rethink that. The data from J.D. Power is clear: outages are getting longer, customers are losing patience, and extreme weather isn’t taking a break.

The better question now is: How much control do you want over your next outage—and how much are you still outsourcing to luck?