Most people find out how unreliable their power grid is the hard way — mid-outage, in the dark, wondering whether they should have bought a generator months ago.
The problem we're solving
Backup power decisions are usually made blind. People buy a generator because a neighbor has one, or because an ad told them to, not because they know how often — or how badly — power actually goes out where they live. That information exists: the Department of Energy has been recording county-level outage data for over a decade. It just wasn't built into anything a normal person could actually use.
PowerOutageHistory turns 12 years of real DOE/ORNL outage records into something simple: a reliability grade for your county, and a generator or power station sized to match your area's actual outage history — not a generic one-size-fits-all recommendation. See exactly how on our methodology page.
No ads. No data selling.
We don't run display ads on this site, and we don't sell, rent, or share your data with anyone — there's nothing to sell, since we don't track you for advertising in the first place. See our privacy policy for the specifics.
How we keep the lights on
Running this site — hosting, the annual DOE and NOAA data refreshes, ongoing development — costs real money. Our only source of revenue is Amazon affiliate commissions when you buy a generator, power station, or prep item through one of our product links. It costs you nothing extra — the price is identical to going straight to Amazon — and it's the only thing keeping this tool free and ad-free for everyone else. Full detail on how that works is on our affiliate disclosure page.
If this site helped you figure out whether — and what — backup power you actually need, buying through our links is the most direct way to support it.