– 0% of Penobscot out 0 customers out in Maine

Power outage history

Penobscot County Maine

21hours

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

11th most of 16 in Maine 3.1× the national median

Worst outage on record Dec 19, 2023 68% of customers out · 90% back in 3.4 days

Hours without power, average customer per year 21h / yr State average 21 h · national median 6.6 h

Major outages a year 3.1 Peaks over 10% of customers or 50,000 customers

Typical time to restore 90% 20hours Median across major outages, from the peak

Longest single outage 6.0days Dec 18, 2023, over 1% of customers out

Outage hours on storm days 87% Share falling on days with a NOAA storm report here

Worst year 2023 48 hours without power, average customer

Electricity customers 88,128 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 Penobscot'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

2023 was the worst well-recorded year, at 48 hours for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.

Penobscot, hours without power per customer

PenobscotUS median countyMaine 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
Dec 18, 2023	Windstorm	59,742	68%	6.0 d	3.4 d	3.6M
Apr 9, 2020	Winter storm	65,190	74%	5.7 d	3.4 d	2.7M
Oct 30, 2017	Windstorm	61,301	70%	4.3 d	2.9 d	2.5M
Oct 31, 2019	Windstorm	37,487	43%	2.8 d	4.8 h	841k
Dec 23, 2022	Windstorm	24,437	28%	3.1 d	43 h	713k
Nov 28, 2024	Winter storm	23,342	26%	45 h	33 h	456k
Dec 19, 2025	Windstorm	16,598	19%	2.1 d	44 h	434k
Dec 5, 2020	Winter storm	19,849	23%	2.3 d	27 h	408k
Dec 11, 2024	Windstorm	20,197	23%	48 h	27 h	356k
Nov 3, 2018	Windstorm	23,369	27%	43 h	24 h	332k
Sep 30, 2020	Windstorm	19,371	22%	34 h	26 h	257k
Sep 16, 2023	Hurricane Lee	14,665	17%	34 h	30 h	243k
Dec 29, 2016	Winter storm	21,404	24%	20 h	12 h	239k
Nov 30, 2020	Windstorm	13,912	16%	38 h	27 h	194k
Dec 17, 2022	Winter storm	11,142	13%	46 h	29 h	178k
Apr 7, 2016	Windstorm	16,006	18%	23 h	18 h	146k
Oct 12, 2024	Windstorm	9,657	11%	27 h	22 h	98k
Oct 17, 2019	No storm report	10,610	12%	15 h	14 h	94k
Nov 28, 2019	Winter storm	8,004	9%	26 h	19 h	92k
Jan 10, 2016	No storm report	7,088	8%	23 h	20 h	66k
Jun 12, 2017	Thunderstorms	5,201	6%	22 h	17 h	65k
Apr 27, 2020	No storm report	4,653	5%	14 h	13 h	61k
Jun 12, 2024	No storm report	8,091	9%	12 h	11 h	60k
Sep 30, 2015	Flooding	4,342	5%	21 h	–	57k
Aug 18, 2020	No storm report	14,272	16%	6.2 h	4.5 h	54k
Oct 2, 2021	No storm report	14,383	16%	4.2 h	2.5 h	51k
Jun 23, 2024	No storm report	8,092	9%	10 h	9.8 h	49k
Mar 14, 2018	Winter storm	6,076	7%	19 h	6.0 h	46k
Mar 21, 2024	Winter storm	5,633	6%	14 h	12 h	45k
Feb 24, 2016	Thunderstorms	6,411	7%	15 h	3.5 h	42k

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 Penobscot from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.

Windstorm 52%
Winter storm 31%
No storm on record 14%
Tropical storm 2.0%
Thunderstorms 0.8%

Who keeps the lights on

Utilities serving Penobscot

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

Utility	Type	Outage min / yr	Excl. major storms	Outages / yr	Residential ¢/kWh	Customers
Central Maine Power Co	Investor Owned	318	177	2.11	27.4	584k
Versant Power	Investor Owned	500	223	2.38	30.1	138k
Eastern Maine Electric Coop	Cooperative	991	559	7.23	19.4	11k

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

Piscataquis 44 h
Somerset 42 h
Hancock 41 h
Waldo 27 h
Penobscot (this county) 21 h
Washington 19 h
Aroostook 7.2 h

Across Maine

Where it is darkest

Hours / yr64+

All Maine 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 88,128 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 →