Power outage durations in Germany decreased during energy crisis year 2022

Germany saw a slight drop in the duration of electricity interruptions in 2022 compared to the previous year, the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) reported. The average length of power outages in the year that was marked by Europe's energy crisis was 12.2 minutes per connected end consumer, slightly down from 12.7 minutes in 2021. The reduction showed that the country “continues to offer a consistently high level of quality” to power customers, the agency stated. "The electricity supply in Germany was very reliable in 2022,” said BNetzA head Klaus Müller. “The number of fault reports in low and medium voltage decreased compared to the previous year." The quality level is also reflected in the System Average Interruption Duration Indexes (SAIDIs) of the federal states, which largely show a decrease compared to the previous year, he added.

In 2021, Germany experienced its first increase in power supply cuts since 2017 largely due to a single accident at a transformer station and floods. Energy supply network operators report annually to the BNetzA on all supply interruptions that occur in their networks and last longer than three minutes. The reports contain the time, duration, extent and cause of the interruptions. For 2022, 855 network operators reported a total of 157,245 supply interruptions in low and medium voltage. The number of fault reports fell by around 9,300 compared to the previous year.
The network agency’s own SAIDI system logs all unplanned interruptions that cannot be attributed to force majeure, reflecting the average supply interruption per connected end consumer within a calendar year. The agency publishes the overview of electricity supply interruptions on its website.