City of Richland, WA
City of Richland's outage record
City of Richland customers in Washington rarely lose power at all: 0.4 interruptions last year, adding up to just 39 minutes without electricity over the whole year. That is 90% less outage time than the Washington state average of 6.4 hours a year.
Outage length, and what it means for a generator
A single outage here averages 1.7 hours. That is squarely in battery-power-station range; a fuel generator is overkill for most of these. The frequency-versus-duration guide covers why length decides the kind of backup.
What this means for buying a generator
Most City of Richland customers keep power almost all year. Serving 28,306 customers here, You probably do not need a generator unless you already have another reason to want one.
The source behind this number
City of Richland filed these numbers itself, as a municipally-owned utility, under EIA Form 861 - a federal reliability report covering its entire Washington territory, serving 28,306 customers here, not a single street or outage. Every other utility in Washington is covered too: see Washington's full record. How the verdict bands are set is in the methodology.