Power outages in North Carolina, by utility
Across 36 North Carolina utilities that reported to the federal government, the median customer went without power for 1.9 hours in 2025 — that is 1.5× better than the national median. North Carolina ranks #32 of 41 states for outage time, worst first.
- Median utility
- 1.9 hrs
- typical customer
- Worst utility
- 12.9 hrs
- Haywood Electric Member Corp
- Best utility
- 0.2 hrs
- City of Albemarle - (NC)
- Utilities reporting
- 36
- of 752 nationwide
Every reporting North Carolina utility, worst outage time first
| # | Utility | Outage time/yr | Outages/yr | vs US median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Haywood Electric Member CorpCooperative | 12.9 hrs776 min | 5.1 | 4.4× worse |
| 2 | Blue Ridge Elec Member Corp - (NC)Cooperative | 9 hrs542 min | 2.2 | 3.0× worse |
| 3 | Piedmont Electric Member CorpCooperative | 8.4 hrs503 min | 1.8 | 2.8× worse |
| 4 | City of Gastonia - (NC)Municipal | 6 hrs362 min | 1.0 | 2.0× worse |
| 5 | Pee Dee Electric Member CorpCooperative | 4.7 hrs285 min | 2.7 | 1.6× worse |
| 6 | Central Electric Membership Corp. - (NC)Cooperative | 4.5 hrs268 min | — | 1.5× worse |
| 7 | Surry-Yadkin Elec Member CorpCooperative | 4.2 hrs249 min | 1.8 | 1.4× worse |
| 8 | Randolph Electric Member CorpCooperative | 3.7 hrs225 min | 2.2 | 1.3× worse |
| 9 | Duke Energy Carolinas, LLCInvestor Owned | 3.6 hrs216 min | 1.4 | 1.2× worse |
| 10 | Wake Electric Membership CorpCooperative | 3.5 hrs211 min | 1.9 | 1.2× worse |
| 11 | Tideland Electric Member CorpCooperative | 3.4 hrs205 min | 2.5 | 1.2× worse |
| 12 | Duke Energy Progress - (NC)Investor Owned | 3.1 hrs183 min | 1.4 | 1.0× worse |
| 13 | Roanoke Electric Member CorpCooperative | 3 hrs179 min | 1.5 | 1.0× worse |
| 14 | EnergyUnited Elec Member CorpCooperative | 2.8 hrs169 min | 1.6 | 1.1× better |
| 15 | Lumbee River Elec Member CorpCooperative | 2.5 hrs152 min | 1.7 | 1.2× better |
| 16 | Rutherford Elec Member CorpCooperative | 2.5 hrs149 min | 1.2 | 1.2× better |
| 17 | Carteret-Craven El Member CorpCooperative | 2 hrs118 min | 1.5 | 1.5× better |
| 18 | Fayetteville Public Works CommissionMunicipal | 1.9 hrs116 min | 1.9 | 1.5× better |
| 19 | City of New Bern - (NC)Municipal | 1.9 hrs115 min | 1.0 | 1.5× better |
| 20 | New River Light & Power CoState | 1.8 hrs110 min | 0.7 | 1.6× better |
| 21 | Town of High PointMunicipal | 1.8 hrs108 min | 1.4 | 1.6× better |
| 22 | Edgecombe-Martin County E M CCooperative | 1.7 hrs104 min | 1.2 | 1.7× better |
| 23 | Tri-County Elec Member Corp (NC)Cooperative | 1.5 hrs89 min | 0.7 | 2.0× better |
| 24 | City of Rocky Mount - (NC)Municipal | 1.4 hrs81 min | 1.2 | 2.2× better |
| 25 | City of Statesville - (NC)Municipal | 1.3 hrs78 min | 0.6 | 2.3× better |
| 26 | City of Wilson - (NC)Municipal | 1.1 hrs66 min | 0.5 | 2.7× better |
| 27 | City of Concord - (NC)Municipal | 1.1 hrs65 min | 0.6 | 2.7× better |
| 28 | City of Kinston - (NC)Municipal | 1.1 hrs64 min | 0.5 | 2.8× better |
| 29 | Jones-Onslow Elec Member CorpCooperative | 1 hrs57 min | 0.7 | 3.1× better |
| 30 | Union Electric Membership Corp - (NC)Cooperative | 0.9 hrs52 min | 0.7 | 3.4× better |
| 31 | Town of Apex- (NC)Municipal | 0.7 hrs45 min | 0.3 | 4.0× better |
| 32 | Greenville Utilities CommMunicipal | 0.7 hrs43 min | 0.4 | 4.2× better |
| 33 | Brunswick Electric Member CorpCooperative | 0.7 hrs41 min | 0.6 | 4.4× better |
| 34 | City of Monroe - (NC)Municipal | 0.5 hrs31 min | 0.5 | 5.7× better |
| 35 | Town of Huntersville - (NC)Municipal | 0.4 hrs24 min | 0.2 | 7.5× better |
| 36 | City of Albemarle - (NC)Municipal | 0.2 hrs14 min | 0.1 | 12.6× better |
Outage time is SAIDI: the average minutes a customer went without power across the year, storms and major events included. Outages/yr is SAIFI. The US median across all reporting utilities is 3 hours (178 minutes).
What these numbers do and do not say
SAIDI counts the minutes an average customer spent without power over the year, including storms and other major events. We rank on the figure that includes them, because excluding storms would describe a year nobody actually lived through.
Utilities report these numbers themselves, and smaller co-ops and municipal systems often serve rural territory where a single line fault affects a large share of customers. A high number is not automatically mismanagement — but it is still the power you did not have.
Utilities that filed no reliability data are left out entirely rather than counted as zero.