Economic Cost of Outages
per Residential Customer · 2013–2024

Methodology — Value of Lost Load (VOLL)

The outage cost per customer translates SAIDI reliability metrics into economic terms:

SAIDI from EIA Form 861 IEEE standard. 1.2 kW average residential load during outage hours (DOE assumption). $10/kWh residential Value of Lost Load based on DOE and FERC studies measuring what customers pay to avoid outages through backup generation and other means.

Duke Energy Carolinas SC: $1,561/customer and $887M total economic cost in 2024. This is the economic burden Hurricane Helene imposed on 568,586 SC residential customers — separate from any recovery costs, property damage, or business losses. The total cost of $887M exceeds many utilities' entire annual revenue. For regulatory purposes, this figure is used to assess the value of grid hardening investments: if $100M in underground cabling prevents a future $887M outage cost, the investment is clearly justified.