Shedding light on inequities of power outages through data transparency

Abstract In a changing climate, the electricity grid is increasingly exposed to more extreme weather that results in significant power outages. Further, lower income and racial-ethnic minority households are more likely to experience a higher frequency and duration of power outages compared to less socially vulnerable groups. The literature on the unequal impacts of power outages is a new, growing area of research that has been stymied in part due to the difficulty acquiring high spatial resolution, historical power outage data from utilities. In this Perspectives article, we review the availability of power outage data, and what can be learned from higher spatial resolution data about the uneven distribution of power outages. We illustrate this with a case study evaluating power outage data in Florida from 2018–2022 at the county and zip-code level. We compare this to literature on spatial heterogeneity of social vulnerability indicators to identify ways that higher spatial resolution outage data can better measure inequities of power outages. Last, we provide feedback from stakeholders in Central Florida in local government, utilities, and community groups on the ways that higher resolution outage data could be used for improving equitable grid resilience.