– 0% of New Castle out 0 customers out in Delaware

Power outage history

New Castle County Delaware

4.0hours

without power for the average customer in a typical year, 2018–2025

1st most of 3 in Delaware 39% below the national median

Worst outage on record Mar 14, 2017 17% of customers out · 90% back in 36 hours

Hours without power, average customer per year 4.0h / yr State average 2.3 h · national median 6.6 h

Major outages a year 0.5 Peaks over 10% of customers or 50,000 customers

Typical time to restore 90% 34hours Median across major outages, from the peak

Longest single outage 2.9days Aug 7, 2020, over 1% of customers out

Outage hours on storm days 91% Share falling on days with a NOAA storm report here

Worst year 2020 7.7 hours without power, average customer

Electricity customers 191,056 ORNL customer model · 8 well-covered years

Every day since 2015

Eleven years, one night at a time

Each cell is a day. The brighter it is, the larger the share of New Castle's customers who were without power at that day's worst moment.

20152016201720182019202020212022202320242025

0%100% of customers out

Year by year

Hours in the dark, per customer

2020 was the worst well-recorded year, at 7.7 hours for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.

New Castle, hours without power per customer

New CastleUS median countyDelaware average

The record

The biggest outages since 2015

Ranked by customer-hours lost: customers out multiplied by how long they stayed out. Times are local.

Began	Storm	Peak out	Share	Lasted	90% restored	Customer-hours
Mar 14, 2017	Winter storm	33,074	17%	2.0 d	36 h	600k
Mar 2, 2018	Windstorm	44,559	23%	2.1 d	23 h	547k
Aug 4, 2020	Hurricane Isaias	28,933	15%	2.1 d	33 h	541k
Jun 23, 2015	Thunderstorms	45,881	24%	34 h	24 h	526k
Aug 7, 2020	Thunderstorms	16,291	9%	2.9 d	2.9 d	400k
Jan 9, 2024	Windstorm	20,780	11%	47 h	42 h	334k
Aug 7, 2023	Thunderstorms	23,275	12%	2.0 d	46 h	333k
Jul 18, 2016	Thunderstorms	16,832	9%	13 h	13 h	99k
Feb 16, 2025	No storm report	5,051	3%	24 h	21 h	72k
Jun 19, 2025	Thunderstorms	10,252	5%	10 h	20 h	66k
Apr 6, 2017	Thunderstorms	12,777	7%	12 h	17 h	63k
Jul 22, 2019	Thunderstorms	16,080	8%	9.8 h	9.0 h	62k
May 29, 2019	Thunderstorms	6,438	3%	20 h	26 h	62k
Jun 8, 2016	Thunderstorms	13,913	7%	9.2 h	9.0 h	61k
Jul 16, 2024	Heat	9,482	5%	7.0 h	8.5 h	44k
Dec 24, 2020	Windstorm	12,139	6%	11 h	14 h	44k
Apr 3, 2016	Thunderstorms	12,219	6%	6.8 h	7.0 h	41k
Dec 16, 2020	Winter storm	4,284	2%	15 h	–	31k
Jul 12, 2022	Thunderstorms	8,778	5%	4.8 h	11 h	26k
Jun 27, 2015	Flooding	6,972	4%	6.2 h	8.0 h	24k
Apr 10, 2020	Thunderstorms	5,015	3%	4.8 h	11 h	22k
Aug 2, 2017	Flooding	4,625	2%	5.5 h	–	20k
Jul 9, 2015	Tornadoes	3,732	2%	7.2 h	–	20k
Mar 21, 2018	Winter storm	4,737	2%	6.8 h	–	19k
Mar 28, 2021	Thunderstorms	6,971	4%	3.8 h	6.0 h	18k
Jun 5, 2016	Thunderstorms	4,835	3%	5.8 h	–	17k
Apr 22, 2015	No storm report	10,956	6%	4.0 h	1.2 h	17k
Feb 18, 2022	Thunderstorms	3,520	2%	5.8 h	–	16k
Feb 7, 2020	Thunderstorms	6,414	3%	4.2 h	8.5 h	15k
Jun 26, 2023	Thunderstorms	5,264	3%	5.5 h	12 h	15k

After the peak

How fast the lights come back

Each line is one major outage, from its peak. The amber line is the typical path.

When it happens

The outage clock

Customer-hours out by month (rings, January innermost) and local hour, 2018–2025.

What was happening

Weather behind the outages

Each outage is matched to NOAA storm reports for New Castle from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.

Thunderstorms 37%
Windstorm 31%
Tropical storm 19%
No storm on record 8.9%
Winter storm 1.8%
Heat 1.5%

Who keeps the lights on

Utilities serving New Castle

As each utility reports to the Energy Information Administration for its whole Delaware territory, not this county alone. Outage minutes include major storm days.

Utility	Type	Outage min / yr	Excl. major storms	Outages / yr	Residential ¢/kWh	Customers
Delmarva Power	Investor Owned	104	76	0.78	18.2	305k
Town of Smyrna	DE	–	–	–	14.1	51k
New Castle Municipal Serv Comm	DE	17	17	0.16	13.6	22k
City of Newark	Municipal	35	35	0.27	19.8	12k
Town of Middletown	Municipal	–	–	–	16.6	9.2k

EIA Form 861, latest year each utility reported. Outage minutes are SAIDI, the yearly minutes the average customer goes without power; outages a year are SAIFI.

Next door

Neighbouring counties

Chester, PA 9.3 h
Delaware, PA 6.6 h
Cecil, MD 4.8 h
Salem, NJ 4.6 h
New Castle (this county) 4.0 h
Kent, MD 2.5 h
Gloucester, NJ 2.4 h
Kent 0.9 h

Across Delaware

Where it is darkest

Hours / yr64+

All Delaware counties →

About these numbers

Notes

Outages come from the EAGLE-I record of utility outage maps collected every 15 minutes by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Hours without power are customer-hours divided by the county's 191,056 electricity customers. Averages use well-covered years from 2018. Outages shorter than 15 minutes, and utilities that publish no outage map, are not in the record, so these figures understate the total. How every number is made →