PUD No 1 of Cowlitz County, WA
How often PUD No 1 of Cowlitz County goes out
1.3 separate outages last year, 3.6 hours without power in total - that is PUD No 1 of Cowlitz County's record for Washington, running ahead of the national median. That is 43% less outage time than the Washington state average of 6.4 hours a year.
Outage length, and what it means for a generator
A typical outage here runs about 2.8 hours - long enough that a battery alone usually will not see you through, but short enough that a fuel-powered portable generator is a reasonable match. More on that split in how often versus how long an outage runs.
The generator question for PUD No 1 of Cowlitz County
Serving 54,672 customers here, PUD No 1 of Cowlitz County customers lose more power than most of the country sees, so a generator is worth getting rather than an overreaction.
The source behind this number
PUD No 1 of Cowlitz County filed these numbers itself, as a political-subdivision utility, under EIA Form 861 - a federal reliability report covering its entire Washington territory, serving 54,672 customers here, not a single street or outage. Want the Washington average instead of just this one utility? Washington's statewide record is here. The full scoring method lives in the methodology guide.