– 0% of Rensselaer out 0 customers out in New York

Power outage history

Rensselaer County New York

8.9hours

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

24th most of 62 in New York 1.4× the national median

Worst outage on record Oct 7, 2020 51% of customers out · 90% back in 41 hours

Hours without power, average customer per year 8.9h / yr State average 4.3 h · national median 6.6 h

Major outages a year 1.1 Peaks over 10% of customers or 50,000 customers

Typical time to restore 90% 19hours Median across major outages, from the peak

Longest single outage 3.2days Oct 7, 2020, over 1% of customers out

Outage hours on storm days 84% Share falling on days with a NOAA storm report here

Worst year 2020 20 hours without power, average customer

Electricity customers 80,326 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 Rensselaer'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 20 hours for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.

Rensselaer, hours without power per customer

RensselaerUS median countyNew York 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
Oct 7, 2020	Thunderstorms	41,294	51%	3.2 d	41 h	1.3M
Mar 23, 2024	Winter storm	28,141	35%	2.2 d	21 h	685k
Mar 14, 2023	Winter storm	23,478	29%	2.2 d	34 h	434k
May 5, 2017	Windstorm	14,546	18%	27 h	24 h	131k
Apr 3, 2024	Winter storm	5,461	7%	2.1 d	34 h	129k
Sep 7, 2023	Thunderstorms	5,372	7%	42 h	38 h	123k
Jan 9, 2024	Windstorm	7,823	10%	24 h	22 h	105k
Jul 16, 2024	Thunderstorms	11,209	14%	25 h	23 h	100k
Nov 20, 2016	Winter storm	7,770	10%	35 h	29 h	86k
Mar 2, 2018	Winter storm	5,437	7%	32 h	29 h	74k
Jul 17, 2022	No storm report	12,866	16%	11 h	9.8 h	70k
Jul 2, 2020	Thunderstorms	11,097	14%	17 h	16 h	57k
May 18, 2017	Thunderstorms	4,578	6%	18 h	18 h	56k
Jan 13, 2024	Windstorm	8,368	10%	15 h	12 h	50k
Nov 1, 2019	Windstorm	4,062	5%	31 h	30 h	43k
Jan 17, 2023	Winter storm	4,667	6%	12 h	9.5 h	42k
Aug 13, 2016	Thunderstorms	5,301	7%	19 h	15 h	39k
Jul 27, 2018	Thunderstorms	10,262	13%	6.8 h	4.2 h	39k
Oct 30, 2017	Windstorm	3,222	4%	16 h	–	37k
Dec 23, 2022	Windstorm	2,987	4%	27 h	–	35k
Mar 7, 2022	Thunderstorms	4,698	6%	14 h	16 h	34k
Mar 8, 2018	Winter storm	6,798	8%	11 h	4.8 h	32k
Feb 25, 2019	Windstorm	5,157	6%	21 h	20 h	32k
Jan 23, 2023	Winter storm	4,986	6%	15 h	3.8 h	32k
Mar 1, 2021	Windstorm	3,099	4%	14 h	–	27k
Mar 3, 2019	No storm report	5,923	7%	5.8 h	5.5 h	25k
Jan 1, 2019	Windstorm	4,921	6%	7.5 h	3.8 h	25k
Apr 16, 2018	Windstorm	2,215	3%	14 h	–	24k
Jul 29, 2023	No storm report	2,664	3%	13 h	–	23k
Jul 14, 2021	Flooding	5,465	7%	6.5 h	3.8 h	23k

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

Thunderstorms 39%
Winter storm 32%
No storm on record 16%
Windstorm 9.0%
Flooding 1.6%
Heat 0.8%
Tropical storm 0.6%

Who keeps the lights on

Utilities serving Rensselaer

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

Utility	Type	Outage min / yr	Excl. major storms	Outages / yr	Residential ¢/kWh	Customers
Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.	Investor Owned	242	140	1.39	19.9	1.5M
New York State Elec & Gas Corp	Investor Owned	302	146	1.85	22.6	794k

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

Columbia 17 h
Greene 15 h
Washington 11 h
Saratoga 9.1 h
Rensselaer (this county) 8.9 h
Bennington, VT 7.5 h
Albany 5.8 h
Berkshire, MA 3.3 h

Across New York

Where it is darkest

Hours / yr64+

All New York 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 80,326 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 →