Dataset (draft)
Power cuts by region: dataset
How often the power goes off, and for how long, in each of Great Britain’s 14 electricity network areas.
Draft dataset
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What it is
Two things in one place for each of Great Britain’s 14 electricity distribution licence areas:
- Reliability, 2024/25 (with 2023/24 for comparison), from Ofgem’s RIIO-ED2 annual report data: customer interruptions (CI), the number of customers whose supply was interrupted per 100 customers in the year, and customer minutes lost (CML), the average minutes without power per customer. Both count interruptions of 3 minutes or longer.
- Our live-fault archive: distinct incidents listed in the operators’ public live power cut feeds, which we have logged every 15 minutes since 2026-11-01, 14:53 GMT. The archive is new, so it is not a history yet.
By licence area
| Licence area | Network operator | CI 2024/25 | CML 2024/25 | CI 2023/24 | CML 2023/24 | Incidents in our archive |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| North Scotland | Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks | 59.1 | 68.9 | 56.6 | 65.6 | 4 |
| South and Central Scotland | SP Energy Networks | 31.3 | 25.8 | 32.9 | 26.2 | Not logged (account needed) |
| North Wales, Merseyside and Cheshire | SP Energy Networks | 28.6 | 34.5 | 31.6 | 33.4 | Not logged (account needed) |
| North West England | Electricity North West | 26.1 | 27.1 | 26.2 | 26.8 | Not logged (account needed) |
| North East England | Northern Powergrid | 51.0 | 46.8 | 48.6 | 49.5 | 13 |
| Yorkshire | Northern Powergrid | 54.7 | 51.2 | 55.2 | 53.5 | 8 |
| West Midlands | National Grid Electricity Distribution | 46.3 | 34.2 | 44.8 | 32.9 | 9 |
| East Midlands | National Grid Electricity Distribution | 34.3 | 24.6 | 44.2 | 26.1 | 4 |
| South Wales | National Grid Electricity Distribution | 42.1 | 27.5 | 46.3 | 26.1 | 2 |
| South West England | National Grid Electricity Distribution | 59.0 | 50.4 | 57.5 | 46.9 | 3 |
| London | UK Power Networks | 11.2 | 10.5 | 12.2 | 11.4 | 5 |
| South East England | UK Power Networks | 42.2 | 30.4 | 49.5 | 36.5 | 31 |
| East England | UK Power Networks | 44.6 | 32.5 | 46.2 | 35.6 | 27 |
| Southern England | Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks | 41.8 | 51.2 | 51.3 | 57.6 | 11 |
| Great Britain | All | 39.7 | 35.1 | 42.5 | 36.7 |
CI: interruptions per 100 customers. CML: minutes without power per customer. Ofgem names Electricity North West “SP ENW”. Figures rounded to one decimal place.
Council pages using it
- Cornwall: South West England (59.0 interruptions per 100 customers, 50.4 minutes per customer)
- Plymouth: South West England (59.0 interruptions per 100 customers, 50.4 minutes per customer)
- Torbay: South West England (59.0 interruptions per 100 customers, 50.4 minutes per customer)
- Somerset: South West England (59.0 interruptions per 100 customers, 50.4 minutes per customer); Southern England (41.8 interruptions per 100 customers, 51.2 minutes per customer)
- Bristol: South West England (59.0 interruptions per 100 customers, 50.4 minutes per customer)
- Tewkesbury: West Midlands (46.3 interruptions per 100 customers, 34.2 minutes per customer); Southern England (41.8 interruptions per 100 customers, 51.2 minutes per customer)
- Shropshire: West Midlands (46.3 interruptions per 100 customers, 34.2 minutes per customer); North Wales, Merseyside and Cheshire (28.6 interruptions per 100 customers, 34.5 minutes per customer)
- Birmingham: West Midlands (46.3 interruptions per 100 customers, 34.2 minutes per customer)
- Manchester: North West England (26.1 interruptions per 100 customers, 27.1 minutes per customer); North Wales, Merseyside and Cheshire (28.6 interruptions per 100 customers, 34.5 minutes per customer)
- Leeds: Yorkshire (54.7 interruptions per 100 customers, 51.2 minutes per customer)
- Calderdale: Yorkshire (54.7 interruptions per 100 customers, 51.2 minutes per customer); North West England (26.1 interruptions per 100 customers, 27.1 minutes per customer)
- York: North East England (51.0 interruptions per 100 customers, 46.8 minutes per customer)
- Hull: Yorkshire (54.7 interruptions per 100 customers, 51.2 minutes per customer)
- Cumberland: North West England (26.1 interruptions per 100 customers, 27.1 minutes per customer)
- Southwark: London (11.2 interruptions per 100 customers, 10.5 minutes per customer)
- Maidstone: South East England (42.2 interruptions per 100 customers, 30.4 minutes per customer)
- Glasgow: South and Central Scotland (31.3 interruptions per 100 customers, 25.8 minutes per customer)
- Highland: North Scotland (59.1 interruptions per 100 customers, 68.9 minutes per customer)
- Cardiff: South Wales (42.1 interruptions per 100 customers, 27.5 minutes per customer)
- Conwy: North Wales, Merseyside and Cheshire (28.6 interruptions per 100 customers, 34.5 minutes per customer)
Method
- CI and CML are read from the “Ch2 outputs - reliability” sheet of Ofgem’s supplementary data file. We do not adjust them.
- Licence-area boundaries are NESO’s “GB DNO Licence Areas 20240503”. The map file is simplified to about 500 metres, so it is not precise at the edges.
- Archive incidents are counted once each (Northern Powergrid lists one row per incident and postcode, so we count by its incident reference) and placed in a licence area by the location the operator gives. 7 logged incidents had no usable location and are left out.
- Council pages show the figures for the licence area or areas covering the council, with the share of the council’s land in each.
Limits
- Licence-area averages hide big differences within an area; they are not figures for a street or town.
- Electricity North West and SP Energy Networks publish live fault data only to signed-in portal users, so the north-west of England, south and central Scotland, and north Wales, Merseyside and Cheshire are not in our archive. Ofgem’s yearly figures do cover them.
- An incident count is not the number of homes affected or how long a cut lasted.
- These figures do not say how safe or risky anywhere is.
Licences and credits
- Ofgem, RIIO-2 Electricity Distribution annual report 2024 to 2025, published 15 January 2026: supplementary data file. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- NESO, GIS boundaries for GB DNO licence areas: NESO Open Data Licence.
- Live feeds: UK Power Networks (CC BY 4.0); SSEN Distribution (CC BY 4.0); National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED Open Data Licence; “Supported by NGED Open Data”); Northern Powergrid (Northern Powergrid Open Data Licence v1.0, to be checked again before launch).
Download
- Reliability by licence area (CSV)
- Licence areas with reliability figures (GeoJSON, WGS84, simplified)
How to cite it
Never Caught Out (2026). Power reliability by electricity licence area, version 0.1, 1 November 2026. https://nevercaughtout.co.uk/data/power-cuts/
Please also credit the original publishers listed above, as their licences require.