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Power: Out When You Most Need It

April 1, 2014

Eaton’s recently released its 2013 Annual Blackout Tracker Report, which shows that power outages are still a major problem for facility managers across the U.S. As it shows, some of causes can be pretty weird.

Eaton’s recently released 2013 Annual Blackout Tracker Report, which shows that outages are still a major problem for facility managers across the U.S.

According to the report’s full year of data, there were 3,236 reported outages - an increase of about 15% from the 2,808 outages reported in 2012.

Some details:
The average length of an outage was 86 minutes, resulting in an average cost per incident of approximately $690,200.
83% of respondents were able to point to a specific source, citing the most frequent root causes as: UPS battery failure (55%), UPS capacity exceeded (46%) and accidental EPO/human error (48%).

Eaton’s annual report also features “top” outage lists, including the most significant reported outages, largest data center outages and the most unusual causes for outages.

Among the most unusual causes of power outages in 2013:

A man was so mad at his neighbors that he went on a rampage with a bulldozer. He damaged four homes, knocked over a 70-foot pole and cut power to thousands of people.
A runaway trash truck rolled down the street and smashed into a utility pole after the driver exited to take a phone call – damaging the truck and knocking out power.
Wild parrots roosting on an overhead line knocked out power to more than 6,100 customers for three hours.

You can download the entire report from the Eaton website;