San Diego County California

3.3hours

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

49th most of 56 in California 50% below the national median

Worst outage on record Dec 3, 2020 5% of customers out · 90% back in 35 hours

Hours without power, average customer per year 3.3h / yr State average 6.2 h · national median 6.6 h

Major outages a year 0.3 Peaks over 10% of customers or 50,000 customers

Typical time to restore 90% 32hours Median across major outages, from the peak

Longest single outage 45hours Dec 9, 2024, over 1% of customers out

Outage hours on storm days 71% Share falling on days with a NOAA storm report here

Worst year 2020 4.5 hours without power, average customer

Electricity customers 1,362,929 ORNL customer model · 8 well-covered years

Every day since 2015

Eleven years, one night at a time

Each cell is a day. The brighter it is, the larger the share of San Diego's customers who were without power at that day's worst moment.

20152016201720182019202020212022202320242025

0%100% of customers out

Year by year

Hours in the dark, per customer

2020 was the worst well-recorded year, at 4.5 hours for the average customer. Hatched years have a thin record and are left out of the averages.

San Diego, hours without power per customer

San DiegoUS median countyCalifornia average

The record

The biggest outages since 2015

Ranked by customer-hours lost: customers out multiplied by how long they stayed out. Times are local.

Began	Storm	Peak out	Share	Lasted	90% restored	Customer-hours
Dec 2, 2020	Wildfire	74,451	5%	43 h	35 h	2.2M
Dec 9, 2024	No storm report	51,858	4%	45 h	29 h	2.0M
Oct 30, 2019	Windstorm	27,587	2%	29 h	27 h	665k
Jan 20, 2025	Wildfire	20,253	1%	36 h	34 h	571k
Dec 7, 2017	Windstorm	27,587	2%	27 h	36 h	530k
Jan 23, 2025	Windstorm	20,189	1%	24 h	18 h	466k
Nov 13, 2018	Windstorm	28,815	2%	24 h	36 h	450k
Oct 25, 2019	Windstorm	24,293	2%	17 h	18 h	353k
Jan 31, 2016	Thunderstorms	47,182	3%	14 h	17 h	347k
Jan 20, 2017	Flooding	39,029	3%	9.0 h	19 h	236k
Dec 7, 2020	Windstorm	15,665	1%	14 h	24 h	210k
Nov 7, 2022	No storm report	17,818	1%	7.2 h	6.2 h	125k
Nov 12, 2018	Windstorm	21,381	2%	6.0 h	15 h	103k
Nov 13, 2018	Windstorm	30,030	2%	4.2 h	13 h	98k
Sep 6, 2020	Wildfire	19,850	1%	5.8 h	14 h	97k
Sep 5, 2020	Wildfire	27,150	2%	4.0 h	14 h	78k
Feb 22, 2023	Windstorm	21,564	2%	3.5 h	15 h	59k
Jan 22, 2024	Flooding	25,638	2%	2.5 h	7.8 h	45k
Nov 12, 2019	No storm report	24,699	2%	2.0 h	8.8 h	40k
Jul 18, 2015	Thunderstorms	19,439	1%	1.8 h	12 h	21k
Jul 18, 2015	Thunderstorms	20,254	1%	1.2 h	6.5 h	17k
Nov 25, 2015	No storm report	17,178	1%	1.0 h	3.5 h	16k
Apr 20, 2018	No storm report	15,590	1%	1.0 h	1.0 h	15k
Aug 24, 2022	No storm report	14,559	1%	1.0 h	30 min	15k
Dec 13, 2021	No storm report	14,014	1%	1.0 h	4.0 h	14k
Mar 28, 2025	No storm report	19,460	1%	48 min	48 min	14k
Sep 19, 2016	Thunderstorms	17,934	1%	1.0 h	5.5 h	12k
Oct 22, 2020	No storm report	18,822	1%	48 min	48 min	12k
Aug 20, 2023	Hurricane Hilary	15,732	1%	48 min	2.0 h	12k
Jun 6, 2023	No storm report	14,175	1%	48 min	48 min	11k

When it happens

The outage clock

Customer-hours out by month (rings, January innermost) and local hour, 2018–2025.

What was happening

Weather behind the outages

Each outage is matched to NOAA storm reports for San Diego from twelve hours before it began to its peak. Matching shows coincidence, not proof of cause.

Wildfire 38%
Windstorm 32%
No storm on record 29%
Flooding 0.7%

Who keeps the lights on

Utilities serving San Diego

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

Utility	Type	Outage min / yr	Excl. major storms	Outages / yr	Residential ¢/kWh	Customers
Pacific Gas & Electric Co.	Investor Owned	273	208	1.63	37.5	5.1M
Southern California Edison Co	Investor Owned	545	116	1.39	31.5	4.6M
San Diego Gas & Electric Co	Investor Owned	130	68	0.54	45.8	1.4M
Imperial Irrigation District	Political Subdivision	114	56	0.72	18.7	143k
City of Escondido	Municipal	–	–	–	–	–

EIA Form 861, latest year each utility reported. Outage minutes are SAIDI, the yearly minutes the average customer goes without power; outages a year are SAIFI.

Next door

Neighbouring counties

Riverside 5.0 h
Imperial 4.4 h
San Diego (this county) 3.3 h
Orange 2.3 h

Across California

Where it is darkest

Hours / yr64+

All California counties →

About these numbers

Notes

Outages come from the EAGLE-I record of utility outage maps collected every 15 minutes by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Hours without power are customer-hours divided by the county's 1,362,929 electricity customers. Averages use well-covered years from 2018. Outages shorter than 15 minutes, and utilities that publish no outage map, are not in the record, so these figures understate the total. How every number is made →