https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_European_blackout
https://www.dw.com/en/berlin-blackout-raises-questions-over-...
- 2020, well, here you go
- 2018/2019 should also need no overview, CA is probably the worst power situation in OECD countries in the 21st century
- 2017, 88k without power https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/04/21/power-outage-sh...
- 2016, 23k https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/10/14/pge-power-outag...
- 2015, 45k https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/06/08/thousands-of-ba...
I'm only picking the first Google result for each year. I could keep going but I hope the point is made: Berlin got a blackout once in a decade like most American cities get multiple times a year. It reacted comparatively slowly because it's so infrequent there was no recovery plan. The political impact of the outage was huge, the country's attitude was that everything is collapsing - and by "collapsing", they mean "like America is all the time."
The Berlin power outage linked above was over thirty hours, and the SF outages you linked were a few hours. To bury that in "(not always duration)" seems misleading to me. That said, the 2019 power cuts were indeed approaching third-world duration and frequency, to the point that homeowners who could afford it applied the usual third-world workarounds (gas generators, etc.). That was mostly outside the biggest cities, but huge numbers of people were affected.
And how did we get from SF to "most American cities"? California's grid reliability is notoriously and distinctively bad, and a huge political topic here too (though with little progress after many years). The World Bank[1] puts the overall USA's quality of electricity supply solidly in the middle of high-income countries though, slightly ahead of Germany.
We also seem to be mixing load shedding (i.e., the utility realizes they can't safely supply all their customers and therefore deliberately cuts power to some) with accidental outages. They look the same to the customer, but perhaps imply different kinds of bad planning by the utility.
1. https://tcdata360.worldbank.org/indicators/ha7db856d?country...
Not 'we'; I'm well-aware of the difference but the person I was responding to gave examples of accidental outages.
The US has considerably more of both than Europe, especially Germany (SAIDI measured in hours vs. 15-20 minutes), regardless of what investment-focused metrics the World Bank is giving.
2020
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/08/07/blacko...
https://www.theblackoutreport.co.uk/2020/08/12/chicago-black...
https://www.nola.com/news/article_a64debc0-c3dc-11ea-8d5a-57...
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/11/detroit...
https://eu.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/07...
...
2019
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_blackout_of_July_201...
https://eu.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/07/22/dt...
https://www.rt.com/usa/385646-blackouts-hit-la-ny-sf/
etc.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/detroit-hit-by-major-power-...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_blackout_of_1977
Note that the Berlin blackout affected 30000 people and was caused by a construction company cutting through a cable. All of these affected many more (Chicago: 800K), occur rather frequently and seem to be caused by regular phenomena like weather.
One major reason is that so much of power-distribution is above-ground, on these poles you see everywhere. Storms will knock these over or have falling trees take them down.
>We also seem to be mixing load shedding ... with accidental outages.
Yes. The claim was that "most 1st world countries" experience rolling blackouts. That's not true.
I'm comparing what the parent asked to compare, even though it's not load shedding.
> Such emergency outages happen every day
In America. Not Germany. Like, yes, literally some level of outage occurs daily, but it's an order of magnitude difference.
US: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37652
Germany: https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/EN/Areas/Energy/Companies/S...
Of course failures happen, for example when I was living in Mountain View we had a blackout because a squirrel committed suicide by chewing through a high voltage cable. Or when I was living in Detroit, we were without power and heating for 3 days due to an ice storm. It was a pretty large (and long) outage, and we had freezing temperatures inside the house. Generators were sold out for 500 miles.
Ahh found it: 1985, 370K customers affected
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_in_Michigan
Rolling blackouts are planned power outages because of insufficient capacity.
And note that these rolling blackouts are happening again and again.
