List of power outages - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

This is a list of notable wide-scale power outages.

To be included, the outage must conform to these criteria:

The outage must not be planned by the service provider.
The outage must affect at least 1,000 people and last at least one hour.
There must be at least 1,000,000 person*customer hours of disruption.

In other words:

1,000 people affected for 1,000 hours (42 days) minimum, but if fewer than 1,000 people, event would not be included (regardless of duration)
One million people affected for a minimum of one hour, but if duration is less than one hour, event would not be included (regardless of number of people)
For example, 10,000 people affected for 100 hours or 100,000 for 10 hours would be included

Largest

Article	Millions affected	Location	Date
2005 Java–Bali Blackout	100	Indonesia	2005-08-18
1999 Southern Brazil blackout 1999 Southern Brazil blackout The 1999 Southern Brazil blackout was a widespread power outage that occurred in Brazil on March 11, 1999. The blackout involved São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, Goiás, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul and Rio Grande do Sul, affecting an estimated 75 to 97 million people...	97	South and southeastern Brazil	1999-03-11
2009 Brazil and Paraguay blackout 2009 Brazil and Paraguay blackout The 2009 Brazil and Paraguay blackout was a power outage that occurred throughout much of Brazil and for a short time the entirety of Paraguay, on Tuesday, November 10, 2009, at approximately 22:15 BST...	87	Central, south and southeastern Brazil and all Paraguay	2009-11-10/2009-11-11
Northeast Blackout of 2003 Northeast Blackout of 2003 The Northeast blackout of 2003 was a widespread power outage that occurred throughout parts of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and Ontario, Canada on Thursday, August 14, 2003, just before 4:10 p.m....	55	North America, northeastern	2003-08-14/2003-08-15
2003 Italy blackout 2003 Italy blackout The 2003 Italy blackout was a serious power outage that affected all of Italy—except the islands of Sardinia and Capri—for 12 hours and part of Switzerland near Geneva for 3 hours on 28 September 2003. It was the largest blackout in the series of blackouts in 2003, affecting a total of...	55	Italy	2003-09-28
Northeast Blackout of 1965 Northeast Blackout of 1965 The Northeast blackout of 1965 was a significant disruption in the supply of electricity on November 9, 1965, affecting Ontario, Canada and Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, and New Jersey in the United States...	30	North America, northeastern	1965-11-09

1965–1995

1965
The Northeast Blackout of 1965

Northeast Blackout of 1965

The Northeast blackout of 1965 was a significant disruption in the supply of electricity on November 9, 1965, affecting Ontario, Canada and Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, and New Jersey in the United States...

in the northeastern USA and in Ontario, Canada, on the evening of November 9, 1965.

1974
A freak early season blizzard

Blizzard

A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong winds. By definition, the difference between blizzard and a snowstorm is the strength of the wind. To be a blizzard, a snow storm must have winds in excess of with blowing or drifting snow which reduces visibility to 400 meters or ¼ mile or...

on October 13 caused a major power outage that affected more than a million customers for up to one week in Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

, New Brunswick

New Brunswick

New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual . The provincial capital is Fredericton and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the largest Census Metropolitan Area...

and Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island is a Canadian province consisting of an island of the same name, as well as other islands. The maritime province is the smallest in the nation in both land area and population...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.

1976
On July 4, a major power failure affected most of Utah, and part of Wyoming for 1 1/2 to 6 hours.

1977
On July 13 - 14, the New York City blackout of 1977

New York City blackout of 1977

The New York City blackout of 1977 was an electricity blackout affected most of New York City from July 13, 1977 to July 14, 1977. The only neighborhoods in New York City that were not affected were in southern Queens, and neighborhoods of the Rockaways, which are part of the Long Island Lighting...

resulted in looting

Looting

Looting —also referred to as sacking, plundering, despoiling, despoliation, and pillaging—is the indiscriminate taking of goods by force as part of a military or political victory, or during a catastrophe, such as during war, natural disaster, or rioting...

and rioting.

1978
On December 19, a blackout affected 80% of France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

1981
On January 10, prisoners on a work assignment burning trash & debris at the Utah State Prison in Draper, Utah

Draper, Utah

Draper is a city in Salt Lake and Utah Counties in the U.S. state of Utah, located about south of Salt Lake City along the Wasatch Front. Between 1990 and 2000 Draper was Utah's fastest-growing city over 5,000 people . Its population in 1990 was 7,143 and had grown to 25,220 by the 2000 census...

, accidentally cause a major power failure when something they were burning exploded, causing a fireball that shorted out transmission lines above them. Power lost to 1.5 million people, in almost all of Utah, as well as parts of southeastern Idaho and southwestern Wyoming.

1983
On December 27, a disconnecting switch in a 400 kV substation near Enköping

Enköping

Enköping is a locality and the seat of Enköping Municipality, Uppsala County, Sweden with 20,204 inhabitants in 2005.- Geography :Enköping is situated near Lake Mälaren, about 78 km west of Stockholm....

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

failed due to overheating and this caused the substation's busbar protection to trip all circuit breakers, then most of the 400 kV lines carrying hydro power from northern Sweden were disconnected and the few remaining lines tripped due to overload within a few minutes. As a result, mains frequency and voltage rose in northern Sweden until safety systems tripped most of the generating equipment. On the contrary, southern Sweden suffered from sinking voltage and frequency until most equipment tripped there. For a short time, the whole country except parts supplied by small independent utilities, suffered from the blackout. It took up to 24 hours to restore full service because most of the nuclear power stations were emergency stopped and needed several hours to restart.

1987
The Great Storm of 1987

Great Storm of 1987

The Great Storm of 1987 occurred on the night of 15/16 October 1987, when an unusually strong weather system caused winds to hit much of southern England and northern France...

brought down power lines throughout southern England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

causing extensive blackouts.

1988
On April 5, a failure of Takeo

Takeo, Saga

is a city located in Saga Prefecture on the island of Kyūshū, Japan.-Geography:Takeo is located in the western part of Saga Prefecture. It is approximately west of Saga City and approximately east of Sasebo. Takeo has a complex topography including mountains, mountain basins and riverside...

electrical substation from power, which knocked out power to 630,000 customers around Nagasaki Prefecture

Nagasaki Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyūshū. The capital is the city of Nagasaki.- History :Nagasaki Prefecture was created by merging of the western half of the former province of Hizen with the island provinces of Tsushima and Iki...

and some of Saga Prefecture

Saga Prefecture

is located in the northwest part of the island of Kyūshū, Japan. It touches both the Sea of Japan and the Ariake Sea. The western part of the prefecture is a region famous for producing ceramics and porcelain, particularly the towns of Karatsu, Imari, and Arita...

, include Nagasaki

Nagasaki

is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Nagasaki was founded by the Portuguese in the second half of the 16th century on the site of a small fishing village, formerly part of Nishisonogi District...

, Sasebo

Sasebo, Nagasaki

is a city located in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. As of 2011, the city has an estimated population of 259,800 and the density of 609 persons per km². The total area is 426.47 km². The locality is famed for its scenic beauty. The city includes a part of Saikai National Park...

, Isahaya and Karatsu.

1989
March 1989 geomagnetic storm

March 1989 geomagnetic storm

The March 1989 geomagnetic storm was a severe geomagnetic storm that caused the collapse of Hydro-Québec's electricity transmission system. It occurred during solar cycle 22.-Geomagnetic storm and auroras:...

– On March 13, a geomagnetic storm

Geomagnetic storm

A geomagnetic storm is a temporary disturbance of the Earth's magnetosphere caused by a disturbance in the interplanetary medium. A geomagnetic storm is a major component of space weather and provides the input for many other components of space weather...

caused the Hydro-Québec

Hydro-Québec

Hydro-Québec is a government-owned public utility established in 1944 by the Government of Quebec. Based in Montreal, the company is in charge of the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity across Quebec....

power failure which left 6 million people in the Canadian province of Quebec without power for 9 or more hours.

1990
During the Winter of 1990–1991 in Western Europe

Winter of 1990–1991 in Western Europe

The winter of 1990–1991 was a particularly cold winter in Western Europe, noted especially for its effect on the United Kingdom, and for two significantly heavy falls of snow which occurred in December 1990 and February 1991. Sandwiched in between was a period of high winds and heavy rain which...

the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

experienced heavy snowfall on the weekend of December 7–11, 1990. This caused extensive blackouts, notably across the English Midlands

English Midlands

The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...

, as well as a widespread water supply cut-off. The Army

Army

An army An army An army (from Latin arma "arms, weapons" via Old French armée, "armed" (feminine), in the broadest sense, is the land-based military of a nation or state. It may also include other branches of the military such as the air force via means of aviation corps...

were called in to help restore power.

1991
On July 7, a powerful wind storm

Southern Great Lakes Derecho of 1991

The Southern Great Lakes Derecho of 1991 is the derecho event that occurred on July 7 and 8, 1991. It lasted 17 hours and raced from South Dakota through southern Michigan before dying out over western Pennsylvania.-South Dakota:...

affected a large portion of central North America and knocked power to about 1 million customers from Iowa

Iowa

Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...

to Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

.

1995
On October 4, Hurricane Opal, which killed at least 59 people, knocked out power to over 2 million customers across eastern and southern North America.

1996

On August 3, the 1996 Peninsular Malaysia electricity blackout crisis occurred.

1996 Western North-America summer blackouts
1996 Western North-America summer blackouts
The 1996 Western North America blackouts were two widespread power outages that occurred across Western Canada, the Western United States, and Northwest Mexico on July 2 and August 10, 1996...

– On August 10, the Western Intertie buckled under high summer heat, causing a cascading power failure affecting nine western states of the United States and parts of Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. 4 million people were affected. Power was out in some locations for 4 days.

On November 19, a severe ice storm
Ice storm
An ice storm is a type of winter storm characterized by freezing rain, also known as a glaze event or in some parts of the United States as a silver thaw. The U.S. National Weather Service defines an ice storm as a storm which results in the accumulation of at least of ice on exposed surfaces...

affected the region around Spokane, Washington
Spokane, Washington
Spokane is a city located in the Northwestern United States in the state of Washington. It is the largest city of Spokane County of which it is also the county seat, and the metropolitan center of the Inland Northwest region...

and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
Coeur d'Alene is the largest city and county seat of Kootenai County, Idaho, United States. It is the principal city of the Coeur d'Alene Metropolitan Statistical Area. Coeur d'Alene has the second largest metropolitan area in the state of Idaho. As of the 2010 census the population of Coeur...

causing power outages lasting up to two weeks.

1998

The early-January 1998 Ice Storm in northeastern North America caused prolonged blackouts, particularly in Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

where many transmission towers were destroyed by ice. Over 3.5 million customers in total lost power during the event.

From February 20 to March 27, the 1998 Auckland power crisis
1998 Auckland power crisis
The 1998 Auckland power crisis was a five-week-long power outage.Almost all of downtown Auckland in New Zealand was supplied electricity by Mercury Energy via four power cables, two of them 40-year-old oil-filled cables that were past their replacement date. One of the cables failed on 20 January,...

resulted in the entire Auckland Central Business District
Auckland CBD
The Auckland CBD is the geographical and economic heart of the Auckland metropolitan area. Bounded by several major motorways and by the harbour coastline in the north, it is surrounded further out by mostly suburban areas...

in Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...

, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

being without power for several weeks, after a line failure had cause a chain reaction leading to the failure of three other lines.

On May 31, a powerful wind storm knocked out power to nearly 2 million customers across much of Central North America.

On September 25, the Esso Longford gas explosion which caused a complete loss of gas supplies to the entire state of Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

for 2 weeks.

On December 8, affecting San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, and its environs, over 350,000 customers(buildings) or 940,000 people were affected by an outage caused when the PG&E utility placed a San Mateo
San Mateo, California
San Mateo is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area. With a population of approximately 100,000 , it is one of the larger suburbs on the San Francisco Peninsula, located between Burlingame to the north, Foster City to the east, Belmont to the south,...

sub-station online at , while the station was still grounded
Ground (electricity)
In electrical engineering, ground or earth may be the reference point in an electrical circuit from which other voltages are measured, or a common return path for electric current, or a direct physical connection to the Earth....

following maintenance. This drew so much power from the Peninsula transmission lines that 25 other sub-stations in San Francisco automatically and immediately shut down. Power was not fully restored until almost 4 pm the same day. Economic costs were estimated in tens of millions of dollars.

1999

On March 11, a blackout affected about 70% of the Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian territory, leaving more than 90 million without power for hours. Cities like Sao Paulo
São Paulo
São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and South America, and the world's seventh largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among...

, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

, Belo Horizonte
Belo Horizonte
Belo Horizonte is the capital of and largest city in the state of Minas Gerais, located in the southeastern region of Brazil. It is the third largest metropolitan area in the country...

, Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre is the tenth most populous municipality in Brazil, with 1,409,939 inhabitants, and the centre of Brazil's fourth largest metropolitan area . It is also the capital city of the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city is the southernmost capital city of a Brazilian...

and Curitiba
Curitiba
Curitiba is the capital of the Brazilian state of Paraná. It is the largest city with the biggest economy of both Paraná and southern Brazil. The population of Curitiba numbers approximately 1.75 million people and the latest GDP figures for the city surpass US$61 billion according to...

faced urban chaos led by huge traffic
Traffic
Traffic on roads may consist of pedestrians, ridden or herded animals, vehicles, streetcars and other conveyances, either singly or together, while using the public way for purposes of travel...

jams and public subway
Rapid transit
A rapid transit, underground, subway, elevated railway, metro or metropolitan railway system is an electric passenger railway in an urban area with a high capacity and frequency, and grade separation from other traffic. Rapid transit systems are typically located either in underground tunnels or on...

and suburban trains systems that were out.

On July 5, the Boundary Waters-Canadian Derecho
Boundary Waters-Canadian Derecho
The Boundary Waters – Canadian Derecho, , was an international derecho that occurred during the afternoon and evening hours of July 4 and the early morning hours of July 5, 1999. It traveled and lasted 22 hours.-North Dakota:In the pre-dawn hours of July 4, a band of thunderstorms developed...

cut power to over 600,000 homes in Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

with additional outages in New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

and in the Upper Great Lakes
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...

region.

On July 29, in Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

the #326 transmission tower
Transmission tower
A transmission tower is a tall structure, usually a steel lattice tower, used to support an overhead power line. They are used in high-voltage AC and DC systems, and come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes...

collapsed due to a landslide
Landslide
A landslide or landslip is a geological phenomenon which includes a wide range of ground movement, such as rockfalls, deep failure of slopes and shallow debris flows, which can occur in offshore, coastal and onshore environments...

, which disconnected around 8.46 million electricity consumers.

On October 27, a failure of West Kyoto and Ayabe electrical substation from power, which knock out power to 420,000 customers around Kyoto Prefecture
Kyoto Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of the island of Honshu. The capital is the city of Kyoto.- History :Until the Meiji Restoration, the area of Kyoto prefecture was known as Yamashiro....

and north of Hyogo Prefecture
Hyogo Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region on Honshū island. The capital is Kobe.The prefecture's name was previously alternately spelled as Hiogo.- History :...

, include Kyoto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

, Kameoka, Ayabe, Maizuru, Toyooka, which was restored within one hour.

On October 29, hurricane Linda, a Category 5 tropical cyclone, that hit the coast of Orissa, India crippled the local grid and local distribution companies to the extent that entire coastal Orissa suffered a total blackout for up to weeks. While power companies began restoring within 72 hours since first outage, the restoration was prioritized based on essential services - hospitals, telephone exchanges, train stations were the first to have normalcy in services. Rural Orissa continued without power for weeks and certain places for months.

On November 22, a T-33 Shooting Star
T-33 Shooting Star
The Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star is an American-built jet trainer aircraft. It was produced by Lockheed and made its first flight in 1948, piloted by Tony LeVier. The T-33 was developed from the Lockheed P-80/F-80 starting as TP-80C/TF-80C in development, then designated T-33A. It was used by the...

training aircraft struck an electric transmission line, which knocked out power to 800,000 customers around Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

and south of Saitama Prefecture
Saitama Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of the island of Honshu. The capital is the city of Saitama.This prefecture is part of the Greater Tokyo Area, and most of Saitama's cities can be described as suburbs of Tokyo, to which a large amount of residents commute each day.- History...

, including Nerima, Suginami
Suginami, Tokyo
is one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, Japan. In English, it calls itself Suginami City.As of April 1, 2011, the ward has an estimated population of 538,703, with 301,277 households, and a density of 15,834.39 persons per km². The total area is 34.02 km².-Geography:Suginami occupies the...

, Toshima, Hachioji, Tachikawa, Musashino
Musashino, Tokyo
is a city located in Tokyo, Japan.As of October 1, 2010, the city has an estimated population of 137,222 and a population density of 12,788.63 persons per km². The total area is 10.73 km².The city was founded on November 3, 1947...

, Tokorozawa, Kawagoe
Kawagoe, Saitama
is a city located in Saitama Prefecture, Japan, and is about a 30-minute train ride from Ikebukuro in Tokyo.As of July 1, 2011, the city has an estimated population of 343,926...

and Sayama
Sayama, Saitama
, formerly known as Irumagawa, is a city located in Saitama, Japan. Sayama translates as "sitting on a mountain”. The city was founded on July 1, 1954....

. Power was restored within 4 hours.

2000

On 9 May, a major power outage left the entire southern half of Portugal, including Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

, without power for a few hours. The blackout occurred shortly after 10:00 p.m. local time. The apagão, as it is known locally, suddenly plunged Lisbon in complete darkness. Stalled commuter trains and nonworking traffic lights wreaked some havoc in the streets. Security was immediately reinforced in the city, but no rise in criminal activity was registered. Energias de Portugal
Energias de Portugal
EDP - Energias de Portugal ranks among Europe's major electricity operators, as well as being one of Portugal's largest business groups....

, the main Portuguese electricity operator, later reported that the blackout was due to the electrocution of an unfortunate stork
Stork
Storks are large, long-legged, long-necked wading birds with long, stout bills. They belong to the family Ciconiidae. They are the only family in the biological order Ciconiiformes, which was once much larger and held a number of families....

, which landed "on the wrong place at the wrong time". Because of this, the story was reported in the "oddly enough" sections of some European newspapers.

During the 12-month California electricity crisis
California electricity crisis
The California electricity crisis, also known as the Western U.S. Energy Crisis of 2000 and 2001 was a situation in which California had a shortage of electricity caused by market manipulations and illegal shutdowns of pipelines by Texas energy consortiums...

of 2000–01, there were regular power failures due to energy shortages.

2001

On May 20 a problem on power substation caused the Blackout of 2001 in Iran. Outages were reported in Tehran and at least six provincial capitals that are among Iran's biggest cities - Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Kermanshah, Qazvin and Hamedan. This means, it is among the largest Blackout that affected more than 30 million.

2002

On July 13, Baku
Baku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...

and nearly the entirety of Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...

experienced a blackout due to unknown causes.

2003

On July 22, a severe wind storm
Memphis Summer Storm of 2003
The Memphis Summer Storm of 2003 was a severe derecho event that impacted parts of the Southern United States, particularly southwestern Tennessee and northern Mississippi, including the Memphis metropolitan area...

knocked out power to over 300,000 customers in the Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

metropolitan area.
On August 14, a wide-area power failure in the northeastern USA and central Canada (Northeast Blackout of 2003
Northeast Blackout of 2003
The Northeast blackout of 2003 was a widespread power outage that occurred throughout parts of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States and Ontario, Canada on Thursday, August 14, 2003, just before 4:10 p.m....

) affected over 55 million people.
On August 23, power was lost for up to an hour in Helsinki affecting half a million people.
There was a major blackout in London
2003 London blackout
The 2003 London blackout was a serious power outage that occurred in parts of southern London and north-west Kent on 28 August 2003. It was the largest blackout in South East England since the Great Storm of 1987, affecting an estimated 500,000 people....

on August 28 which made worldwide headlines such as "Power cut cripples London" but in fact only affected 500,000 people. In the excitement of the US blackout, this simple matter (of a parallel path being too weak, due to wrong relay settings, after an initial continency, ) received disproportionate interest.
On September 2, the 2003 southern Malaysia blackout resulted when a power failure affected 5 states (out of 13) in Malaysia, including the capital Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur is the capital and the second largest city in Malaysia by population. The city proper, making up an area of , has a population of 1.4 million as of 2010. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an urban agglomeration of 7.2 million...

, for 5 hours starting at 10 am local time.
On September 5, a power outage left at least 3 million Mexicans in the southern Yucatán Peninsula
Yucatán Peninsula
The Yucatán Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico, with the northern coastline on the Yucatán Channel...

without electricity.
On September 19, Hurricane Isabel
Hurricane Isabel
Hurricane Isabel was the costliest and deadliest hurricane in the 2003 Atlantic hurricane season. The ninth named storm, fifth hurricane, and second major hurricane of the season, Isabel formed near the Cape Verde Islands from a tropical wave on September 6 in the tropical Atlantic Ocean...

knocked out electricity for 4.3 million people across nine US states and parts of Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.
On September 23, a power failure affected 5 million people in east Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

and southern Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

.
On 27 to 28 September, the 2003 Italy blackout
2003 Italy blackout
The 2003 Italy blackout was a serious power outage that affected all of Italy—except the islands of Sardinia and Capri—for 12 hours and part of Switzerland near Geneva for 3 hours on 28 September 2003. It was the largest blackout in the series of blackouts in 2003, affecting a total of...

resulted from a power failure that affected all of Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

except Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...

, cutting service to more than 56 million people.

2004

On June 29, a disruption in natural gas
Natural gas
Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...

supplies from Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

caused a widespread blackout in the northern, eastern and western parts of Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

.

On July 12, two power plants in Lavrio and Megalopoli
Megalopolis, Greece
Megalópoli is a town in the western part of the peripheral unit of Arcadia, southern Greece. It is located in the same site as ancient Megalopolis . "Megalopolis" is a Greek word for Great city. When it was founded, in 371 BC, it was the first urbanization in rustic and primitive Arcadia. In...

, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

, shut down due to malfunction within 12 hours of each other, during a period of high demand (heat wave); that led to a cascading failure causing the collapse of the entire Southern (Power) System, affecting several million people in southern Greece.

On September 4, five million people in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

were without power at one point due to Hurricane Frances
Hurricane Frances
Hurricane Frances was the sixth named storm, the fourth hurricane, and the third major hurricane of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season. The system crossing the open Atlantic during mid to late August, moving to the north of the Lesser Antilles while strengthening. Its outer bands affected Puerto...

, one of the most widespread outages ever due to a hurricane.

2005

The 2005 Malaysia electricity blackout crisis where many states of Malaysia's northern peninsular, including Perak
Perak
Perak , one of the 13 states of Malaysia, is the second largest state in the Peninsular Malaysia bordering Kedah and Yala Province of Thailand to the north, Penang to the northwest, Kelantan and Pahang to the east, Selangor the Strait of Malacca to the south and west.Perak means silver in Malay...

, Penang
Penang
Penang is a state in Malaysia and the name of its constituent island, located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of Malacca. It is bordered by Kedah in the north and east, and Perak in the south. Penang is the second smallest Malaysian state in area after Perlis, and the...

, Kedah
Kedah
Kedah is a state of Malaysia, located in the northwestern part of Peninsular Malaysia. The state covers a total area of over 9,000 km², and it consists of the mainland and Langkawi. The mainland has a relatively flat terrain, which is used to grow rice...

, and Perlis
Perlis
Perlis is the smallest state in Malaysia. It lies at the northern part of the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia and has Satun and Songkhla Provinces of Thailand on its northern border. It is bordered by the state of Kedah to the south...

had no electricity due to a fault of the main cable transmission line grid near Serendah
Serendah
Serendah is a town in the Hulu Selangor district of Selangor, Malaysia. One of the popular tourist spot in Serendah is Perigi Tujuh Serendah.-History:The area developed due to the tin mines...

, Selangor
Selangor
Selangor also known by its Arabic honorific, Darul Ehsan, or "Abode of Sincerity") is one of the 13 states of Malaysia. It is on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia and is bordered by Perak to the north, Pahang to the east, Negeri Sembilan to the south and the Strait of Malacca to the west...

.

In January, a cyber attack knocked out power in three cities north of Rio De Janeiro, affecting tens of thousands of people.

On January 8, about 341,000 homes lost power in Sweden and several thousand of these were out of power for many days and even weeks in some cases. Power outage was because of the storm Erwin
Erwin (storm)
Erwin was a powerful storm which hit Denmark and Sweden on 8 January 2005. The name Erwin was chosen by the German Weather Service, while the storm was named Gudrun by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute and was the name used in Sweden...

with wind speeds of up to 126 km/h.

On May 25, most of Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

was without power
2005 Moscow power blackouts
On 25 May 2005, Moscow's power supplies were the centre of a major incident, which resulted in the supply being outed for several hours in many of City of Moscow districts, as well as Moscow, Tula, Kaluga and Ryazan provinces...

from 11:00 MSK (+0300 UTC). Approximately ten million people were affected. Power was restored within 24 hours.

On June 16, two-thirds of the people of Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

lost power due a 250 kV
Volt
The volt is the SI derived unit for electric potential, electric potential difference, and electromotive force. The volt is named in honor of the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta , who invented the voltaic pile, possibly the first chemical battery.- Definition :A single volt is defined as the...

line damage. The power was restored the same night.

On August 18, almost 100 million people on Java Island, the main island of Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

which the capital Jakarta
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...

is on, and the isle of Bali
Bali
Bali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east...

, lost power for 7 hours. In terms of population affected, the 2005 Java-Bali Blackout
2005 Java-Bali Blackout
The 2005 Java–Bali Blackout was a power outage across Java and Bali on 18 August 2005. Affecting some 100 million people, it is to date the largest and most widespread power outage in history.-Immediate impact:...

was the largest in history.

On August 22, all of southern and central Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

, including parts of the capital Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...

, all of the second largest city Basra
Basra
Basra is the capital of Basra Governorate, in southern Iraq near Kuwait and Iran. It had an estimated population of two million as of 2009...

and the only port Umm Qasr
Umm Qasr
Umm Qasr , is a port city in southern Iraq. It stands on the canalised Khawr az-Zubayr, part of the Khawr Abd Allah estuary which leads to the Persian Gulf. It is separated from the border of Kuwait by a small inlet...

went out of power for more than 7 hours after a feeder line was sabotaged by insurgents, causing a cascading effect shutting down multiple power plants.

On August 26, 1.3 million people in South Florida lost power due to downed trees and power lines caused by the then category 1 Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...

. Most customers affected were without power for four days, and some customers had no power for up to one week.

On August 29, millions of Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

and Alabama
Alabama
Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. Alabama ranks 30th in total land area and ranks second in the size of its inland...

residents lost power after a strengthening Hurricane Katrina badly damaged the power grid.

On September 12, a blackout in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

affected millions in California.

On October 24, Hurricane Wilma
Hurricane Wilma
Hurricane Wilma was the most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Atlantic basin. Wilma was the twenty-second storm , thirteenth hurricane, sixth major hurricane, and fourth Category 5 hurricane of the record-breaking 2005 season...

caused loss of power for 3.2 million customers in South Florida and Southwest Florida
Southwest Florida
Southwest Florida is a region of Florida , United States located along its gulf coast, south of the Tampa Bay area, west of Lake Okeechobee and mostly north of the Everglades...

, with hundreds of thousands of customers still powerless a week later, and full restoration not complete until November 11.

On December 15, wintry weather
Ice storm of December 2005
The Ice storm of December 2005 was a damaging winter storm that produced extensive ice damage in a large portion of the Southern United States on December 14–16, 2005 while extensive snows were reported across portions of the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec...

including extensive ice knocked out power to 700 000 customers across portions of the Atlantic Coast
East Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...

of the United States.

On December 22, a blizzard and snow storm cause a three cable transmission line to be broken from a tower, which knocked out power to 650,000 customers across Niigata prefecture
Niigata Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Honshū on the coast of the Sea of Japan. The capital is the city of Niigata. The name "Niigata" literally means "new lagoon".- History :...

, include Niigata
Niigata, Niigata
is the capital and the most populous city of Niigata Prefecture, Japan. It lies on the northwest coast of Honshu, the largest island of Japan, and faces the Sea of Japan and Sado Island....

, Nagaoka
Nagaoka, Niigata
is a city located in the central part of Niigata Prefecture, Japan. It is the second largest city in the prefecture, behind the capital city of Niigata...

, Kashiwazaki
Kashiwazaki, Niigata
is a city located in Niigata, Japan.As of May 1, 2008, the city has an estimated population of 92,947 and the density of 210 persons per km². The total area is 442.70 km²....

, Sado
Sado, Niigata
is a city located on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture, in the Chūbu region of Japan. Since 2004, the city has comprised the entire island, although not all of its total area of 855.26 km2 is urbanized...

and Joetsu
Joetsu, Niigata
is a city located in Niigata Prefecture, Japan.As of June 1, 2011, the city has an estimated population of 205,521, with 72,982 households and a population density of 211.15 persons per km². The total area is 973.32 km²....

.

2006

On June 12, central and eastern Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...

, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

experience a 6-hour long power outage
2006 Auckland Blackout
The 2006 Auckland Blackout refers to the massive electrical blackout in Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, on 12 June 2006. It started at 8:30 am local time, with most areas of Auckland regaining power by 2:45 pm local time...

, affecting 230,000 customers, after a shackle attaching an earth wire to the Otahuhu
Otahuhu
Otahuhu is a suburb of Auckland. It is located to the southeast of the city centre, on a narrow isthmus between an arm of the Manukau Harbour to the west and the Tamaki River estuary to the east...

substation gantry dislodged and short-circuited a 220 kV line supplying the central city and three sections of the 110 kV busbar below it.

On July 17, nearly half a million customers in Ontario and Quebec were affected after derecho
Derecho
A derecho is a widespread and long-lived, violent convectively induced straight-line windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms in the form of a squall line usually taking the form of a bow echo...

s and other isolated severe thunderstorms tore through those two provinces. See : Great Lakes-Atlantic Coast derecho

On July 18, the 2006 Delaware Valley blackout is the result of more than 365,000 PECO customers of the Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

area losing power due to violent storms with 71 mi/h winds, which left two dead and thousands of dollars in property damage. In addition, around 26,000 homes were without power in New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

, as well as thousands in the Northeast United States stretching from rural Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

to southwestern Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

.

2006 Queens blackout
2006 Queens blackout
The 2006 Queens blackout was an unresolved series of power outages that affected the northwest section of the New York City borough Queens in July 2006. The blackout primarily affected the neighborhoods of Astoria, Long Island City, Sunnyside, and Woodside...

: On July 18, and continuing for over one week, upwards of 50,000 Queens, New York, and Westchester County
Westchester County, New York
Westchester County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. Westchester covers an area of and has a population of 949,113 according to the 2010 Census, residing in 45 municipalities...

Con Edison customers lost power due to excessive heat and dilapidated infrastructure. In Astoria
Astoria, Queens
Astoria is a neighborhood in the northwestern corner of the borough of Queens in New York City. Located in Community Board 1, Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City, Sunnyside , and Woodside...

, several power lines and transformers caught fire, melted, or failed as Con Edison attempted to restore service. Two air control towers at LaGuardia Airport
LaGuardia Airport
LaGuardia Airport is an airport located in the northern part of Queens County on Long Island in the City of New York. The airport is located on the waterfront of Flushing Bay and Bowery Bay, and borders the neighborhoods of Astoria, Jackson Heights and East Elmhurst. The airport was originally...

lost power briefly on the 18th, resulting in the cancellation of some 45 flights and re-routing of 11 others. Subway service on several Queens lines (BMT Astoria Line
BMT Astoria Line
The Astoria Line is a rapid transit line of the BMT division of the New York City Subway, serving the neighborhood of Astoria, Queens. It runs from Ditmars Boulevard to 39th Avenue along 31st Street. It then serves Queensboro Plaza along 27th Street. It was built as part of the Dual Contracts and...

, IRT Flushing Line
IRT Flushing Line
The Flushing Line is a rapid transit route of the New York City Subway system, operated as part of the IRT Division and designated the 7 route...

, and IND Queens Boulevard Line
IND Queens Boulevard Line
The Queens Boulevard Line is a fully underground line of the B Division of the New York City Subway in Manhattan and Queens, New York City, United States. The line provides crosstown service across Manhattan under 53rd Street and east through Queens to Jamaica...

) was suspended and/or reduced throughout the outage. On July 20, Con Edison announced that approximately 2,500 Queens customers were still without power. On July 21, Con Edison announced a revised estimate of "at least 25,000." On the same day, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Rubens Bloomberg is the current Mayor of New York City. With a net worth of $19.5 billion in 2011, he is also the 12th-richest person in the United States...

stated that Con Edison's definition of "customer" referred to each building they provided power and that the number of people without power was possibly 100,000. More than 3,000 Con Edison customers—an estimated 10,000 people—remained without power as of July 24.

On July 19, "at least 486,000" customers lost power in the greater St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

, area due to 80 mi/h winds and thunderstorms that rolled through the area. Two-thirds of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport
Lambert-St. Louis International Airport
Lambert-St. Louis International Airport is a Class B international airport serving Greater St. Louis. It is located approximately northwest of downtown St. Louis in unincorporated St. Louis County between Berkeley and Bridgeton. It is the largest and busiest airport in the state with 250 daily...

was out of power, stranding hundreds who slept on the concourses. A portion of the airport's roof sheared off and flew onto Interstate 70
Interstate 70
Interstate 70 is an Interstate Highway in the United States that runs from Interstate 15 near Cove Fort, Utah, to a Park and Ride near Baltimore, Maryland. It was the first Interstate Highway project in the United States. I-70 approximately traces the path of U.S. Route 40 east of the Rocky...

, closing lanes. A heat advisory
Heat advisory
A Heat Advisory is issued by the National Weather Service of the United States within 12 hours of the heat index reaching one of two criteria levels. A warning will be issued if there is a heat index of at least 105°F but less than 115°F for less than 3 hours per day or if nighttime low...

for the area was issued due to temperatures reaching as high as 104 °F (40 °C). Power was out for up to 9 days for some people, in part due to a second storm on the 21st. Together, some 600,000 people were affected.

On July 22, parts of greater London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, U.K., lost power. EDF Energy
EDF Energy
EDF Energy is an integrated energy company in the United Kingdom, with operations spanning electricity generation and the sale of gas and electricity to homes and businesses throughout the United Kingdom...

stated the reason was due to a higher energy demand, as more customers are using air conditioning
Air conditioning
An air conditioner is a home appliance, system, or mechanism designed to dehumidify and extract heat from an area. The cooling is done using a simple refrigeration cycle...

in England's capital due to the 2006 European heat wave
2006 European heat wave
The 2006 European heat wave was a period of exceptionally hot weather that arrived at the end of June 2006 in certain European countries. The United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany and western part of Russia were most affected....

; more blackouts occurred right up to the July 27. Similar blackouts have affected the county of Kent due to the drought
Drought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...

.

On August 1, in the Laurentians
Laurentian mountains
The Laurentian Mountains are a mountain range in southern Quebec, Canada, north of the St. Lawrence River and Ottawa River, rising to a highest point of 1166 metres at Mont Raoul Blanchard, north east of Quebec City in the Reserve Faunique des Laurentides. The Gatineau, L'Assomption, Lièvre,...

, in the province of Québec, Canada, a large amount (146,000, at its peak in the evening of August 1) of households were left without electricity for a whole day, and some for up to a whole week due to intense thunderstorms that rolled through southern Quebec including the Greater Montreal Area. Over 450,000 customers in total were affected.

On August 2, nearly a quarter million customers of Hydro One
Hydro One
Hydro One Incorporated delivers electricity across the Canadian province of Ontario. It is a Corporation established under the Business Corporations Act with a single shareholder, the Government of Ontario....

lost power after severe thunderstorms that included tornado
Tornado
A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...

es and damaging wind
Wind
Wind is the flow of gases on a large scale. On Earth, wind consists of the bulk movement of air. In outer space, solar wind is the movement of gases or charged particles from the sun through space, while planetary wind is the outgassing of light chemical elements from a planet's atmosphere into space...

ripped through southern and eastern Ontario.

On August 14, a floating crane hit and broke a transmission across the Edo River
Edo River
thumb|The Edo River in [[Nagareyama, Chiba]] PrefectureThe is a river in the Kantō region of Japan. It splits from the Tone River at the northernmost tip of Narita City, crosses through Nagareyama and Matsudo, and empties into Tokyo Bay at Ichikawa. The Edo forms the borders between Tokyo, Chiba,...

, interrupting power to 1,398,000 customer in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area, include Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

, Yokohama
Yokohama
is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...

and part of Kawasaki
Kawasaki, Kanagawa
is a city located in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, between Tokyo and Yokohama. It is the 9th most populated city in Japan and one of the main cities forming the Greater Tokyo Area and Keihin Industrial Area....

and Ichikawa
Ichikawa, Chiba
is a city located in northwest Chiba, Japan, approximately 20 kilometers from the center of Tokyo. The city was founded on November 3, 1934. As of January 1, 2011, the city has an estimated population of 474,586 and a density of 8,259.42 persons per km². The total area is 57.46 km²...

. Power was restored within five hours.

On September 12, parts of east London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, U.K., lost power, at approximately 9:15 pm.

On October 12, an unusual early-season lake effect snow storm hit the Buffalo, New York
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...

area and other surrounding areas of the United States and Canada. The storm dumped snow from that night through the morning of Friday October 13, 2006. At 8:00 pm, NWS Buffalo began to receive numerous reports of trees and power lines toppling after 3 inches (7.6 cm) of snow accumulated. It was later called the "October Surprise Storm" or Lake Storm "Aphid".

On October 15 an 6.5 magnitude earthquake occurred in the US state of Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

at about 7:07 am causing a power outage to most of the state. Luckily, there were no injuries as a result of the power outage or the earthquake. Power was restored later that night.

On October 24, in Lima, Peru, an aerostatic balloon accidentally crashed against transmission towers
Electricity pylon
A transmission tower is a tall structure, usually a steel lattice tower, used to support an overhead power line. They are used in high-voltage AC and DC systems, and come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes...

causing a short circuit which affected nearly 13 districts in the capital. The power was restored that same night.

On the night of November 4, in parts of Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

and Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

over fifteen million households were left without power after a big cascading breakdown. The root cause was an overload triggered by the German electricity company E.ON
E.ON
E.ON AG, marketed with an interpunct as E•ON, is the holding company of the world's largest investor-owned energy service provider based in Düsseldorf, Germany. The name comes from the Greek word aeon which means eternity....

switching off an electricity line over the river Ems to allow the cruise ship Norwegian Pearl
Norwegian Pearl
Norwegian Pearl is a Jewel class cruise ship of Norwegian Cruise Line, launched in 2006, sailing itineraries primarily around Alaska and the Caribbean.-History:...

to pass through safely. The impact of this disconnection on the security of the network had not been properly assessed, and resulted in the European transmission grid splitting into three independent parts for a period of two hours. The imbalance between generation and demand in each section resulted in the power outages for consumers.

On November 15, a massive wind storm struck the GVRD in BC
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

causing over 200,000 homes to lose power, in some cases for over a week.

On November 30, in St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

, as a result of a winter storm, about 500,000 people lost power due to outages which lasted from 1 day to 2 weeks.

On the night of December 1, in parts of Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, tens of thousands of people lost power due to a severe winter storm, resulting in a state of emergency being declared in Russell Township. Blackouts continued into December 2.

Also on December 1, half of Long Island, New York received blackouts due to a fire at the Long Island electricity department.

On December 15, the Hanukkah Eve Wind Storm of 2006
Hanukkah Eve Wind Storm of 2006
The Hanukkah Eve Wind Storm of 2006 was a powerful Pacific storm that slammed into the Pacific Northwest region of the United States and southern British Columbia, Canada between December 14, 2006 and December 15, 2006...

caused a power failure throughout the Seattle area, causing 1 million people to lose power. Areas including Tacoma
Tacoma, Washington
Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park. The population was 198,397, according to...

, Seattle, Federal Way
Federal Way, Washington
Federal Way is a city in King County, Washington, United States. Federal Way is located between Seattle and Tacoma. Its western boundary is Puget Sound. It is bordered by Des Moines on the north, Kent, unincorporated King County, and Milton on the east and Tacoma and Fife on the south...

, Bremerton
Bremerton, Washington
Bremerton is a city in Kitsap County, Washington, United States. The population was 38,790 at the 2011 State Estimate, making it the largest city on the Olympic Peninsula. Bremerton is home to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and the Bremerton Annex of Naval Base Kitsap...

, Everett
Everett, Washington
Everett is the county seat of and the largest city in Snohomish County, Washington, United States. Named for Everett Colby, son of founder Charles L. Colby, it lies north of Seattle. The city had a total population of 103,019 at the 2010 census, making it the 6th largest in the state and...

, Olympia
Olympia, Washington
Olympia is the capital city of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat of Thurston County. It was incorporated on January 28, 1859. The population was 46,478 at the 2010 census...

and Bellevue
Bellevue, Washington
Bellevue is a city in the Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, across Lake Washington from Seattle. Long known as a suburb or satellite city of Seattle, it is now categorized as an edge city or a boomburb. The population was 122,363 at the 2010 census.Downtown Bellevue is...

were affected. Some areas (Redmond
Redmond, Washington
Redmond is a city in King County, Washington, United States, located east of Seattle. The population was 54,144 at the 2010 census,up from 45,256 in 2000....

) were without service for 4–5 days. Parts of coastal British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

and Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...

were also affected. Most of the damage was caused by trees falling into electrical transmission and distribution lines. Restoration was hampered by nested outages where multiple problems needed to be fixed before electricity to some customers could be restored.

2007

From 12 to 24 January, about 1 million customers from Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

to Atlantic Canada
Atlantic Canada
Atlantic Canada is the region of Canada comprising the four provinces located on the Atlantic coast, excluding Quebec: the three Maritime provinces – New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia – and Newfoundland and Labrador...

lost power due to a series of winter ice storms including 330,000 in Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

, 200,000 in Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....

and 120,000 in Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...

.

On January 16, power was cut to 200,000 people in the Australian state of Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

when bushfires caused the state's electricity connection to the national grid to shut down.

On April 19, Costa Rica experienced a national blackout at 20:10 local time. It affected nearly all the 4,328,000 Costa Ricans at that time. Power restoration started gradually at 21:45 local time.

On April 26, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

experienced a nation-wide blackout at about 10:15 am local time, caused by an undetermined technical failure at a substation in the capital, Bogota, Colombia. Power returned to most parts of the country after several hours.

On June 8, a power failure occurred in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, affecting mainly the Northern Beaches for around 1 day.

On June 27, a power failure occurred in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. About 136,700 customers were without power during the height of the outage. The outage affected Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

and the Bronx for approximately one hour.

Also on June 27, a severe thunderstorm
Thunderstorm
A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm, a lightning storm, thundershower or simply a storm is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere known as thunder. The meteorologically assigned cloud type associated with the...

hit Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

causing half of Long Island to lose power after 8:30 pm.

On July 23, the city of Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

suffered a near-total blackout. Several areas remained without electricity for more than 78 hours due to a massive electrical substation
Electrical substation
A substation is a part of an electrical generation, transmission, and distribution system. Substations transform voltage from high to low, or the reverse, or perform any of several other important functions...

chain failure.

On July 25, a blackout occurred in the Republic of Macedonia
Republic of Macedonia
Macedonia , officially the Republic of Macedonia , is a country located in the central Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. It is one of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, from which it declared independence in 1991...

, Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...

, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

,parts of South Serbia, Montenegro
Montenegro
Montenegro Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора , meaning "Black Mountain") is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the...

and parts of Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

were affected. The main cause of this is believed to be as result of 2007 European heat wave. Power was restored by the following day.

On August 20, a rainstorm hit Regina,Saskatchewan with lightning. The lightning hit the broadstreet substation delaying the riders game and knocking out power but, some lights were on during the blackout.

On 26 and 27 September, a cyber attack caused major disruptions affecting more than 3 million people in dozens of cities in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo
Espírito Santo
Espírito Santo is one of the states of southeastern Brazil, often referred to by the abbreviation "ES". Its capital is Vitória and the largest city is Vila Velha. The name of the state means literally "holy spirit" after the Holy Ghost of Christianity...

.

On December 2, a winter storm damaged transmission systems, resulting in a blackout over much of Eastern Newfoundland & Labrador affecting close to 100,000 customers. About 7,500 customers on the Bonavista Peninsula
Bonavista Peninsula
The Bonavista Peninsula is a large peninsula on the east coast of the island of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador....

were without service for almost a week.

From 8 to 12 December, a series of ice events
Mid-December 2007 North American Winter storms
The Mid-December 2007 North American Winter storms was a series of winter storms that affected much of central and eastern North America from December 8 to December 18, 2007. The systems affected areas from Oklahoma to Newfoundland and Labrador with freezing rain, thunderstorms, sleet, snow,...

cut power to over 1 million homes and businesses across the Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...

of the United States including large portions of Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...

, Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

and Nebraska
Nebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....

.

On December 28, a blackout occurred which affected 21,000 residents along the Florida Keys
Florida Keys
The Florida Keys are a coral archipelago in southeast United States. They begin at the southeastern tip of the Florida peninsula, about south of Miami, and extend in a gentle arc south-southwest and then westward to Key West, the westernmost of the inhabited islands, and on to the uninhabited Dry...

, from Key West
Key West
Key West is an island in the Straits of Florida on the North American continent at the southernmost tip of the Florida Keys. Key West is home to the southernmost point in the Continental United States; the island is about from Cuba....

to Big Pine Key, from 9:00 pm to 10:00 pm.

2008

On January 4, a winter rainstorm hit northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...

causing 1.6 million Pacific Gas & Electric
Pacific Gas and Electric Company
The Pacific Gas and Electric Company , commonly known as PG&E, is the utility that provides natural gas and electricity to most of the northern two-thirds of California, from Bakersfield almost to the Oregon border...

customers to lose power. Most customers had power restored by the morning of January 5.

On January 22, the same area affected by the 2007 Halloween power-cut in Greater Manchester, England suffered another blackout, this time lasting an hour, from 19:15 to 20:15 local time.

From January 25 to February 6, heavy snowstorms in China
2008 Chinese winter storms
The 2008 Chinese winter storms（2008年中国雪灾、2008年中国南方雪灾）are a series of winter storm events that affected large portions of southern and central China starting on 25 January 2008 until 6 February 2008. The systems affected most of the area with heavy snows, ice and cold temperatures causing extensive...

knocked down transmission lines. Fossil fuel power plant
Fossil fuel power plant
A fossil-fuel power station is a power station that burns fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas or petroleum to produce electricity. Central station fossil-fuel power plants are designed on a large scale for continuous operation...

were running low on supply of coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

as trains were unable to deliver coal due to frozen/blocked track. The storms were directly responsible for at least 129 deaths.

On February 11, southern Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

lost power due to ice buildup on power lines, overloading transformers.

On February 20, Coal supplies to some power plants in Java have been stopped, as ships cannot go to ports because of big waves, resulting in an electricity deficit of about 1,000 megawatts affecting the Indonesian capital, Jakarta
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...

On February 26, a failed switch and fire at an electrical substation outside Miami triggered widespread blackouts in parts of Florida affecting four million people. The nuclear reactors at Turkey Point power plant were shut down on the 84 °F (28.9 °C) day. The failure knocked out power to customers in 35 southern Florida counties and spread into the northern Florida peninsula. The affected region ultimately ranged from Miami to Tampa on the state's west coast and Brevard County, home to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center, on the east.

On April 2, 2008 around 420,000 households were left without power in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, and other parts of Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

after the state was hit by winds of up to 130 km/h.

On April 8, 2008, from around 3:30 am around 400,000 persons were left without power in the city of Szczecin
Szczecin
Szczecin , is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of June 2009 the population was 406,427....

and its surroundings (as far as 100 km away from the city), in northwest Poland. Most power was restored within 18 hours. The reason was the fall of wet, heavy snow, which stuck to the power cables and caused them to break. One of the major powerline pillars broke in the aftermath as well.

On April 29, Venezuela experienced a blackout that affected 40% of the country. It happened at 4:30 pm ET and the power was restored by 10 pm ET. It affected 16 states including Zulia, Lara, Carabobo, Yaracuy, Portuguesa, Miranda, Falcon, Mérida, Aragua, Bolivar, Tachira and parts of Caracas.

On May 20, the entire island of Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania, suffered a complete shutdown of power over the entire island. It happened at around 10:00 pm local time, and it was caused by a rupture of the undersea cable from Mainland Tanzania. Power was restored after one month, on June 18.

On June 24, 2008, a faulty underground wire caused a power failure in Maidstone Town Centre and surrounding areas for numerous hours.

On August 4, 2008, an extremely strong storm, a bow echo
Bow echo
A bow echo is a term describing the characteristic radar return from a mesoscale convective system that is shaped like an archer’s bow. These systems can produce severe straight-line winds and occasionally tornadoes, causing major damage.-Research:...

swept through the Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois and Northwest Indiana areas. In Chicago, ComEd, the Chicago electrical company, reported 200,000 customers to be without power at 6:27pm which was during the height of the storm. In Northwest Indiana, NIPSCO reported that 65,000 people were without power during the height of the storm. Storm recovery continued for almost 2 weeks in both states.

On September 1, 2008, power blackouts hit Venezuela.

Between 13 and 15 September, Hurricane Ike
Hurricane Ike
Hurricane Ike was the second-costliest hurricane ever to make landfall in the United States, the costliest hurricane ever to impact Cuba and the second most active hurricane to reach the Canadian mainland in the Great Lakes Region after Hurricane Hazel in 1954...

caused approximately 7.5 million to lose power in the United States from Texas to New York.

On December 11, rare winter snowfall on Southern Louisiana caused 10,000 power outages, due to the accumulation of snow on transmission lines. Later that night in Massachusetts and New Hampshire an ice storm hit causing 1,000,000 people to lose their power.

On December 26, power was lost for about 12 hours on the entire island of Oahu
Oahu
Oahu or Oahu , known as "The Gathering Place", is the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands and most populous of the islands in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital Honolulu is located on the southeast coast...

, Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

starting at about 6:45 pm, where then President-elect Barack Obama and his family were vacationing. This is now confirmed to be due to lightning strikes on power lines, which caused HECO's system to trip.

On December 28, The power outage that left 7,500 customers in Kanata North without power for hours.

2009

On January 23, a severe windstorm knocked out power to 1.2 million customers in parts of France.

On January 27, an ice storm hit Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...

and in Southern Indiana
Southern Indiana
Southern Indiana, in the United States, consists of the 33 counties located in the southernmost part of the state. The region's history and geography has led to a blend of Northern and Southern culture distinct from the remainder of Indiana. It is often considered to be part of the Upland South...

knocking out power to about 769,000. As of February 15 about 12,000 were still without power from this storm.

From 27 to 31 January, hundreds of thousands of homes in Victoria including Melbourne suffered various power failures as a result of a record heat wave. It is estimated that over 500,000 residents in Melbourne were without power for the evening of 30 January 2009.[24] The outtage affected much of central Melbourne with train and tram services cancelled, the evacuation of Crown Casino, traffic light failures, people being rescued from lifts and patrons of the Victorian Arts Centre evacuated and shows cancelled. The outage occurred only an hour after the National Electricity Market Management Company (NEMMCO) issued a statement saying load shedding was ending and power had been restored. Authorities say there had been a major electricity failure in the city's west, caused by the three-day heatwave. It is believed an explosion at South Morang contributed to the power problems along three transmission lines supplying Victoria's west and Victorian power supplier SP AusNet shed 1,000 megawatts.[24] On 30 January, Energy Minister Peter Batchelor announced consumers who lose power for more than 20 hours would be eligible for compensation It is estimated that over 500,000 residents in Melbourne were without power for the evening of 30 January 2009.

On March 6, power to a large area of Maidstone, Kent, United Kingdom was lost due to numerous faults with a power substation in the Oxford Road, in the Shepway borough of the town. The first fault occurred at around 12am causing a power failure to Marden, Linton, Boughton Monchelsea and Loose, at 5am a second fault caused the power to fail in Shepway, Downswood, Bearsted and Maidstone Town Centre, power was restored to all these areas at 8.15am after causing rush hour chaos as all the main roads in the town were not signal controlled. At 11am a third fault caused a power failure in Parkwood and Senace, power was restore after 30 minutes. At 1am EDF made the decision to turn off the power to most of Maidstone to repair the substation, the areas affected by this power failure were Boughton Monchelsea, Chart Sutton, Coxheath, Linton, Loose, Marden, Parkwood, Senacre, Shepway, Sutton Valence and Tovil. In parts of Shepway, Parkwood, Linton and Senacre power was not restored until 10pm. This power failure caused the traffic lights to fail on the Loose Road, Linton Road, Sutton Road and Willington Street as they failed to turn back on when power was restored, these were not repaired till late on the Saturday, also parts of Shepway reported complete street light failure on the Saturday Evening.

On March 28, 19:09, Georgia
Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

, in United States had a wide power outage by an outbreak of 20 tornadoes reported in Hinesville
Hinesville, Georgia
Hinesville is a city in Liberty County, Georgia, United States. The population was 30,392 at the 2000 census. Hinesville is also known to have been the home of three signers of the Declaration of Independence: Lyman Hall, George Walton and Button Gwinnett. The city is the county seat of Liberty...

, Macon
Macon, Georgia
Macon is a city located in central Georgia, US. Founded at the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is part of the Macon metropolitan area, and the county seat of Bibb County. A small portion of the city extends into Jones County. Macon is the biggest city in central Georgia...

, Savannah
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah is the largest city and the county seat of Chatham County, in the U.S. state of Georgia. Established in 1733, the city of Savannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the first state capital of Georgia. Today Savannah is an industrial center and an important...

, and Atlanta. Areas were left with out power for 1 day

On March 30, the CBD of Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

was plunged into darkness at 4:45pm, following the failure of the four lines delivering power to the CBD. The power outage forced the closure of both the Sydney Harbour Tunnel
Sydney Harbour Tunnel
The Sydney Harbour Tunnel is a twin-tube road tunnel in Sydney, Australia. The tunnel was completed and opened to traffic in August 1992 to provide a second vehicular crossing of Sydney Harbour to alleviate congestion on the Sydney Harbour Bridge....

and the Eastern Distributor
Eastern Distributor
The Eastern Distributor, also identified as the M1, is a long motorway in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Part of Metroad 1, it links the Sydney central business district with the Airport...

toll roads. Power was slowly restored to the Eastern Suburbs after 6:45pm with most of the city following shortly after.

On March 30, a major power cut hits homes and business in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

and parts of West Of Scotland. The affected areas included the west end of Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

, Bearsden
Bearsden
Bearsden ) is a town in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland. It lies on the northwestern fringe of Greater Glasgow, approximately from the City Centre, and is effectively a suburb, with housing development coinciding with the introduction of a railway line in 1863, and from where the town gets its name...

, Clydebank
Clydebank
Clydebank is a town in West Dunbartonshire, in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. Situated on the north bank of the River Clyde, Clydebank borders Dumbarton, the town with which it was combined to form West Dunbartonshire, as well as the town of Milngavie in East Dunbartonshire, and the Yoker and...

, Helensburgh
Helensburgh
Helensburgh is a town in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. It lies on the north shore of the Firth of Clyde and the eastern shore of the entrance to the Gareloch....

, Dumbarton and as far afield as Lochgilphead
Lochgilphead
Lochgilphead is a town and former burgh in Scotland, with a population of around 3,000 people. It is the administrative centre of Argyll and Bute. The town lies at the end of Loch Gilp and lies on the banks of the Crinan Canal....

and Oban
Oban
Oban Oban Oban ( is a resort town within the Argyll and Bute council area of Scotland. It has a total resident population of 8,120. Despite its small size, it is the largest town between Helensburgh and Fort William and during the tourist season the town can be crowded by up to 25,000 people. Oban...

. Arran
Isle of Arran
Arran or the Isle of Arran is the largest island in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland, and with an area of is the seventh largest Scottish island. It is in the unitary council area of North Ayrshire and the 2001 census had a resident population of 5,058...

was also affected from the outage. The power cut occurred at 16:20 and power was slowly restored between 17:20 and around 18:30.

On April 13, the West Swindon area of Swindon
Swindon
Swindon is a large town within the borough of Swindon and ceremonial county of Wiltshire, in South West England. It is midway between Bristol, west and Reading, east. London is east...

, Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...

, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

was sent to a blackout at 9:00pm most of the West swindon area was affected by the blackout, but many had their power returned after an 1 hour - 2 hour depending on the area they are living, other parts of West Swindon and near West Swindon such as SN4 (Wroughton
Wroughton
Wroughton is a large village in Wiltshire, England. It is part of the Borough of Swindon and is south of Swindon.-History:The earliest evidence of human presence in the area is from the Mesolithic period, although this is fairly limited...

) were subducted to dropouts.

On July 2, power was cut to about 200,000 customers across five Australia states for about an hour starting at 11am, including over 100,000 in New South Wales, and 50,000 in Queensland, in Melbourne 105 set of traffic light were blackout although no homes or business lost power, in Tasmania only industrial customers where affected, the outage was linked to a generator problem at the bays water power station in the NSW hunter valley.

On July 20, power was cut to around 100,000 homes in the areas of South East London and North Kent, UK, after vandals deliberately caused a fire near a cable installation, which caused failure of a 132 kV cable and four circuit boards. Due to the nature of the cable, it was impossible to re-route supplies around other cables without overloading them. As a result, power supplies were cut to around half of the homes for around 4 days, whilst other homes were given 3 hour allocations of power followed by 6 hours "off". Over 70 mobile generators were brought in from around the country to help restore power in what was the largest deployment in London's history.

On September 14, power was lost to several hundred customers after an incident at a local substation on the Isle of Man. All customers were restored within 90 minutes.

On October 8, power was cut to about 103,000 homes in large parts of north and west Melbourne, Australia. Most customers had their power restored within 30 minutes and some within an hour and a half. The outage affected some further cities as well as Melton, Gisborne, Sunbury and Woodend with Woodend being 100 km away from the western suburbs of Melbourne. The most affected people were in the residential area of the western suburbs of Melbourne which affected 74151 customers. The cause is currently unknown but has been detected to be caused by a fault at the Keilor terminal station which caused it to shut down fully (View Keilor terminal station's supply area in Google Maps). List of most of the affected suburbs.

On October 30 at around 8:00am NZDT
Time in New Zealand
New Zealand has two time zones. The main islands use New Zealand Standard Time , 12 hours in advance of Coordinated Universal Time , while the outlying Chatham Islands use Chatham Standard Time , 12 hours 45 minutes in advance of UTC.During summer daylight saving time is observed and clocks are...

, power was cut to the whole of Northland and most of the northern half of Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...

, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, affecting 280,000 consumers (14.5% of the country). A forklift carrying a shipping container accidentally hit one of the Otahuhu
Otahuhu
Otahuhu is a suburb of Auckland. It is located to the southeast of the city centre, on a narrow isthmus between an arm of the Manukau Harbour to the west and the Tamaki River estuary to the east...

to Henderson
Henderson, New Zealand
Henderson is a major suburb of Auckland, in the North Island of New Zealand. It is located 13 kilometres to the west of Auckland city centre, and two kilometres to the west of the Whau River, a southwestern arm of the Waitemata Harbour.-Description:...

220 kV circuits while the other circuit was out for maintenance, leaving the region supplied by four low capacity 110 kV circuits. Power was restored to the entire region around 11:00am.

On November 10, 22:13 Brasília official time, power was cut out
2009 Brazil and Paraguay blackout
The 2009 Brazil and Paraguay blackout was a power outage that occurred throughout much of Brazil and for a short time the entirety of Paraguay, on Tuesday, November 10, 2009, at approximately 22:15 BST...

to most states of Brazil due to a failure of transmission lines from Itaipu Dam, the world's second largest hydroelectric dam, affecting over 80 million customers. The failure was caused by a major thunder storm which affected a key transmission line to southeastern Brazil causing the hydroelectric power-plant's all 20 turbines to shut-down due the abrupt fall of power demand. Four of Brazil's most densely populated states entirely lost electric power (including the states, and its capitals of the same name, of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro) with 14 more states being partly affected. The entire country of Paraguay experienced the power failure. It took about 7 hours to the system to fully recover. This is regarded as one of the largest blackouts in man's history.

Also on November 10, at 12:00am GMT, power was lost to the whole of Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

and Rotherham
Rotherham
Rotherham is a town in South Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Don, at its confluence with the River Rother, between Sheffield and Doncaster. Rotherham, at from Sheffield City Centre, is surrounded by several smaller settlements, which together form the wider Metropolitan Borough of...

in South Yorkshire
South Yorkshire
South Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 1.29 million. It consists of four metropolitan boroughs: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and City of Sheffield...

, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. Much of Rotherham regained power just 34 minutes later, and most of Sheffield had power back by 2:00am. Power was restored to the last area, the south-east of Sheffield, by 6:00am. Additionally, at around 6:00am, the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

metropolitan borough
Metropolitan borough
A metropolitan borough is a type of local government district in England, and is a subdivision of a metropolitan county. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, metropolitan boroughs are defined in English law as metropolitan districts, however all of them have been granted or regranted...

of Calderdale
Calderdale
The Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale is a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, England, through which the upper part of the River Calder flows, and from which it takes its name...

, West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....

was plunged into darkness for around 15 minutes causing every light on the National Grid in the area to go out. These events both occurred during the one-day Yorkshire Power Crisis.

On November 23, power was cut in northeastern Tennessee and took in some places a week and a half to restore due to a large and fast-moving snow storm.

2010

On January 30, two separate transmission lines were hit by lightning, blacking out the Australian city of Darwin and the nearby cities of Katherine and Palmerston starting at about 6am. Power was restored to all areas by 4:30pm.

In early February, a pair of blizzards hit the Northeastern US on February 5–6
First North American blizzard of 2010
The February 5–6, 2010 North American blizzard also known as "Snowmaggedon" was a winter storm and severe weather event that tracked from the U.S. states of California to Arizona through northern Mexico, the American Southwest, the Midwest, Southeast, and Mid-Atlantic regions...

and again just a few days later on February 9–10
Second North American blizzard of 2010
The February 9–10, 2010 North American blizzard was a winter storm and severe weather event that afflicted the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and New England regions of the United States between February 9–11, 2010, affecting some of the same regions that had experienced a historic Nor'easter three days prior...

. Among the hardest hit areas was the Baltimore-Washington corridor, with well over 200,000 people impacted at the height of the outages and about two-thirds of those without power for periods lasting from half a day to several days. Other urban areas, such as Pittsburgh, were also hard-hit.

On 6 March very violent storms bringing tennis ball sized hail came over Melbourne, Australia. This caused between 50,000 and 100,000 people to lose power. On the same evening, possible tornadoes were reported ripping apart houses and tearing down power lines causing another 20,000 to be without power. Some streets had no power for up to 3 days as many powerlines were replaced. It is estimated that in the 3 days of storm activity half a million customers has their power interrupted.

Saturday 14 March, roughly 15 million people—about 90% of the population of Chile—were left without power
March 2010 Chile blackout
The March 2010 Chile blackout was an electric power outage that affected most of Chile on March 14, 2010. It began at 8:44 pm on Sunday and continued into the next day...

when a major transformer failed in southern Chile. Power began to be restored within a few hours, and almost all of the country had power by the following day. The outage was apparently not directly related to damage from the major earthquake
2010 Chile earthquake
The 2010 Chile earthquake occurred off the coast of central Chile on Saturday, 27 February 2010, at 03:34 local time , having a magnitude of 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale, with intense shaking lasting for about three minutes. It ranks as the sixth largest earthquake ever to be recorded by a...

that hit the country the previous month.

Saturday 14 March, a severe windstorm knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of customers primarily in southwestern Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

as well as parts of Westchester County and Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

, and New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

as a result of a severe wind and rain storm. The outage lasted as long as six days for some customers in the hardest-hit communities. Many Public School districts were also closed for up to five days the following week. http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/03/storm_brings_power_outages_roa.html

On March 30, about 30,000 homes in Northern Ireland were also hit by a power cut, caused by winter weather conditions. Omagh
Omagh
Omagh is the county town of County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is situated where the rivers Drumragh and Camowen meet to form the Strule. The town, which is the largest in the county, had a population of 19,910 at the 2001 Census. Omagh also contains the headquarters of Omagh District Council and...

, Enniskillen
Enniskillen
Enniskillen is a town in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is located almost exactly in the centre of the county between the Upper and Lower sections of Lough Erne. It had a population of 13,599 in the 2001 Census...

, Dungannon
Dungannon
Dungannon is a medium-sized town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It is the third-largest town in the county and a population of 11,139 people was recorded in the 2001 Census. In August 2006, Dungannon won Ulster In Bloom's Best Kept Town Award for the fifth time...

, Derry
Derry
Derry or Londonderry is the second-biggest city in Northern Ireland and the fourth-biggest city on the island of Ireland. The name Derry is an anglicisation of the Irish name Doire or Doire Cholmcille meaning "oak-wood of Colmcille"...

, Coleraine
Coleraine
Coleraine is a large town near the mouth of the River Bann in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It is northwest of Belfast and east of Derry, both of which are linked by major roads and railway connections...

and Ballymena
Ballymena
Ballymena is a large town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland and the seat of Ballymena Borough Council. Ballymena had a population of 28,717 people in the 2001 Census....

were affected.

Monday 31 May - Tuesday 1 June: Large areas of Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

, UK, were plunged into darkness for up to 8 hours. The cause is currently being investigated but it is thought to be the failure of an electricity substation near the M1 motorway
M1 motorway
The M1 is a north–south motorway in England primarily connecting London to Leeds, where it joins the A1 near Aberford. While the M1 is considered to be the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the United Kingdom, the first road to be built to motorway standard in the country was the...

.

Saturday 27 June Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...

UK suffered a massive blackout when a substation caught fire.

On Thursday, July 15, 76,000 people in Oakland and Wayne counties in southeastern Michigan lost power at approximately 7 PM during heavy storms. As of noon on Friday, July 16, power still has not been restored.

On Sunday, July 25, an estimated 250,000 Pepco
PEPCO
PEPCO may refer to:* Portland Electric Power Company* Potomac Electric Power Company* Pakistan Electric Power Company...

customers lost power in the Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

area, due to severe storms that swept through the area.

On Wednesday, September 1, Iceland experienced a massive power outage. See Iceland power outages 2010.

2011

In the second week of January, violent floods hit Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

, Australia. The floods caused widespread damage and death. 150,000 people were without power at the peak of the floods and some people were reconnected as long as 3 weeks later as each flooded home had to be individually checked for electrical damage.
On February 2, in Texas, forced outages at two major coal-fired power plants and high electricity demand due to cold weather caused rotating blackouts affecting more than one million customers.
On February 3 Cyclone Yasi
Cyclone Yasi
Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi was a tropical cyclone that made landfall in northern Queensland, Australia in the early hours of Thursday, 3 February 2011. Yasi originated from a tropical low near Fiji. The system intensified to a Category 3 cyclone at about 5pm AEST on 31 January 2011...

hit communities in North Queensland
North Queensland
North Queensland or the Northern Region is the northern part of the state of Queensland in Australia. Queensland is a massive state, larger than most countries, and the tropical northern part of it has been historically remote and undeveloped, resulting in a distinctive regional character and...

, Australia. The cyclone with winds reaching up to 300 km/h (186mp/h) cause widespread damage through many communities. 170,000 homes lost electricity.
Wednesday, February 4, at least eight states in northeastern Brazil (Alagoas
Alagoas
Alagoas is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil and is situated in the eastern part of the Northeast Region. It borders: Pernambuco ; Sergipe ; Bahia ; and the Atlantic Ocean . It occupies an area of 27,767 km², being slightly larger than Haiti...

, Bahia
Bahia
Bahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil, and is located in the northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast. It is the fourth most populous Brazilian state after São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and the fifth-largest in size...

, Ceará
Ceará
Ceará is one of the 27 states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic coast. It is currently the 8th largest Brazilian State by population and the 17th by area. It is also one of the main touristic destinations in Brazil. The state capital is the city of...

, Paraíba
Paraíba
Paraíba Paraíba Paraíba (Tupi: pa'ra a'íba: "bad to navigation"; Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation: is a state of Brazil. It is located in the Brazilian Northeast, and is bordered by Rio Grande do Norte to the north, Ceará to the west, Pernambuco to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the east...

, Pernambuco
Pernambuco
Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. To the north are the states of Paraíba and Ceará, to the west is Piauí, to the south are Alagoas and Bahia, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean. There are about of beaches, some of the most beautiful in the...

, Piaui
Piauí
Piauí is one of the states of Brazil, located in the northeastern part of the country.Piauí has the shortest coastline of any of the non-landlocked Brazilian states at 66 km , and the capital, Teresina, is the only state capital in the north east to be located inland...

, Rio Grande do Norte
Rio Grande do Norte
Rio Grande do Norte is one of the states of Brazil, located in the northeastern region of the country, occupying the northeasternmost tip of the South American continent. Because of its geographic position, Rio Grande do Norte has a strategic importance. The capital and largest city is Natal...

and Sergipe
Sergipe
Sergipe , is the smallest state of the Brazilian Federation, located on the northeastern Atlantic coast of the country. It borders on two other states, Bahia to the south and west and Alagoas to the north, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean...

) suffered from a major blackout from around midnight to 4 a.m. It is estimated that 53 million people were affected. Major cities like Salvador
Salvador, Bahia
Salvador is the largest city on the northeast coast of Brazil and the capital of the Northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. Salvador is also known as Brazil's capital of happiness due to its easygoing population and countless popular outdoor parties, including its street carnival. The first...

, Recife
Recife
Recife is the fifth-largest metropolitan area in Brazil with 4,136,506 inhabitants, the largest metropolitan area of the North/Northeast Regions, the 5th-largest metropolitan influence area in Brazil, and the capital and largest city of the state of Pernambuco. The population of the city proper...

and Fortaleza
Fortaleza
Fortaleza is the state capital of Ceará, located in Northeastern Brazil. With a population close to 2.5 million , Fortaleza is the 5th largest city in Brazil. It has an area of and one of the highest demographic densities in the country...

were completely out of power.
On 22 February at 12:51 p.m., a 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck the city of Christchurch
Christchurch
Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...

, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, damaging large parts of Orion's sub-transmission and distribution network. Over 80 percent of the city (approximately 160,000 customers) lost power following the quake. A total of 82% of customers had their power restored in five days. Some central city areas are still without power as of 1 May.
In March 2011, a major earthquake hit Japan, not only did the earthquake cause damage but it created a ten-meter high tsunami that wiped out entire towns. It is estimated that four million people lost power and many are still without.
In April 2011, 2 violent storms raged across the southeast, leaving many people without power in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The first one, from April 15-17, brought the majority of the power outages, the second, from April 25-28, left not as much power outages, but still, many people were without power. This ties to the listing below.
Within the last week of April, there were reports on massive power outages and wreckages in Elizabethtown, Kentucky
Elizabethtown, Kentucky
Elizabethtown is a city in and the county seat of Hardin County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 28,531 at the 2010 census, making it the eleventh-largest city in the state...

. These power outages were the end result of a tornado
Tornado
A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...

.
On May 1, a three-hour power outage in Karachi, Pakistan affecting 20 million people.
On June 30, Chennai
Chennai
Chennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...

city
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...

suffered a Major power outage affecting many parts of the city for more than 15 hours
On July 23, failure of a glass insulator caused an outage of most of Nothern Saskatchewan for about 4 hrs.
On the morning of July 11, the Chicagoland area was hit by a large derecho
Derecho
A derecho is a widespread and long-lived, violent convectively induced straight-line windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms in the form of a squall line usually taking the form of a bow echo...

which knocked out power to over 850,000 according to ComEd.
On August 27–28, Hurricane Irene caused over five million power outages.
On September 8–9, widespread power outages
2011 Southwest blackout
The 2011 Southwest blackout, sometimes referred to as the Great Blackout of 2011, was a widespread power outage that affected large areas of Southern California as well as western Arizona and northern Baja California and Sonora. It occurred on Thursday, September 8, 2011, beginning at about 3:38 PM...

affected parts of Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...

and Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

, as well as parts of northwestern Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. Started by monitoring equipment that was causing problems at a power substation in southwest Arizona. As of 5:08 p.m., power had been fully restored in the Yuma, Arizona
Yuma, Arizona
Yuma is a city in and the county seat of Yuma County, Arizona, United States. It is located in the southwestern corner of the state, and the population of the city was 77,515 at the 2000 census, with a 2008 Census Bureau estimated population of 90,041....

area. Over five million people were affected.
On September 15, a blackout had affected most of South Korea
2011 South Korea blackout
The 2011 South Korea Blackout was a power outage across South Korea on September 15th, 2011.-Responses:*President Lee Myung-bak made a remark how this power outage was an incident that "happens in third world countries"...
On September 24, nine million people in north and central Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

were affected by a blackout
2011 Chile blackout
The 2011 Chile blackout was a major power outage that occurred on 24 September 2011, approximately between 20:30 and 21:45 local time , although the time of reinstatement varied geographically. It mainly affected the regions from Coquimbo to Maule, where the blackout was total, but it also...

that lasted for at least two hours.
In late October, a snowstorm along the East Coast
2011 Halloween nor'easter
The 2011 Halloween nor'easter was a large low pressure area that produced unusually early snowfall across the northeastern United States and the Canadian Maritimes. It formed early on October 29 along a cold front to the southeast of the Carolinas...

of the USA caused over two million power outages. Some residents of Connecticut and western Massachusetts were without electricity for over seven days.

External links

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