TOP 10 Countries by Reliability of Electricity Supply (Outage Minutes per Year, 2025)
Reliability of electricity supply in 2025: SAIDI (outage minutes per customer-year)
SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index) is one of the most practical ways to compare electricity reliability: it summarizes how many minutes of sustained outages the average customer experiences over a year. Lower SAIDI usually means fewer operational disruptions, lower backup costs, and better performance for data centers, manufacturing, hospitals, and households.
StatRanker’s “2025” vintage uses the most recent full-year values published by national regulators or system reports as of late 2025. Because reporting calendars and definitions differ, this page also shows the year and the key scope notes used for comparability.
Top 10 countries by electricity reliability (lowest SAIDI)
Exact values below are taken from official publications (regulators / system reports). Units are minutes per customer-year.
Table 1. SAIDI (minutes per customer-year), Top 10
| Rank | Country | SAIDI (min/customer-year) | Year | Scope note (for comparability) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Singapore | 0.26 | 2024 | Sustained interruptions (official reporting) |
| 2 | Switzerland | 8.0 | 2023 | National reporting per regulator definition |
| 3 | South Korea | 8.92 | 2022 | Utility KPI published for outage time |
| 4 | Germany | 11.7 | 2024 | Interruption duration per final customer |
| 5 | Luxembourg | 13.4 | 2024 | Non-planned interruptions (benchmarking) |
| 6 | Netherlands | 23.9 | 2024 | Annual outage duration (national reporting) |
| 7 | Japan | 24.0 | FY2024 | National quality-of-supply dataset |
| 8 | Denmark | 29.7 | 2023 | Average interruption time (national report) |
| 9 | Austria | 37.72 | 2022 | Excluding regional exceptional events |
| 10 | United Kingdom | 39.71 | 2024/25 | Customer Minutes Lost (CML) sector total |
Note: where a jurisdiction publishes a closely related metric (e.g., UK “CML”), StatRanker uses the official definition and labels it as a SAIDI proxy. Exact scope notes are provided to prevent false precision.
Chart 1. SAIDI (outage minutes per customer-year), Top 10
Fallback (data shown if the chart does not load)
- Singapore — 0.26
- Switzerland — 8.0
- South Korea — 8.92
- Germany — 11.7
- Luxembourg — 13.4
- Netherlands — 23.9
- Japan — 24.0
- Denmark — 29.7
- Austria — 37.72
- United Kingdom — 39.71
Methodology (how the ranking is built)
There is no single global SAIDI database that covers all countries with identical definitions. StatRanker therefore builds the ranking from official country sources (regulators, national system reports, and audited sector summaries), using the latest available full-year SAIDI at the time of compilation (late 2025). For each country we store: the reporting year, whether the number includes planned interruptions or exceptional events, and the official unit and scope.
Where jurisdictions publish a closely related reliability KPI instead of SAIDI (for example the UK’s Customer Minutes Lost), StatRanker uses the official metric as a SAIDI proxy and labels it explicitly. Countries are then ranked by the published “minutes per customer-year” value, with scope notes shown next to each entry to avoid misleading comparisons.
Important caveat: SAIDI definitions differ across regulators (thresholds for “sustained” interruptions, treatment of planned outages, and whether major force-majeure events are excluded). The ranking is reliable for identifying best performers, but it is not a substitute for the detailed national methodology behind each figure.
Key insights (what the Top 10 tells you)
1) Reliability is mostly a distribution-network story. In advanced grids, generation is rarely the binding constraint; customers lose power mainly due to distribution faults and restoration times. Automation, sectionalizing, and fast switching show up directly in lower SAIDI.
2) Undergrounding and dense urban networks help — but operations still matter. Countries with high underground cable shares often have fewer weather-related faults, yet top performance usually requires disciplined asset management and strict service-quality regulation.
3) Small differences are meaningful at the frontier. Moving from ~40 minutes to ~10 minutes per year can materially change the economics of backup power for firms that value continuity (cold chains, semiconductors, hospitals, data centers).
What this means for readers (business, jobs, and everyday life)
If you run a business, low SAIDI usually signals fewer production stops, less spoilage risk, and lower costs for generators or battery storage. For remote work and home life, it reduces disruption to connectivity and essential services. For investors and planners, reliability metrics help interpret why certain locations attract data centers and advanced manufacturing: electricity is not only about price, but also about continuity.
If you compare countries for relocation or expansion, treat SAIDI as a service-quality indicator and check two complements: SAIFI (how often outages happen) and the presence of major-event adjustments (storms, floods, wildfires).
FAQ (SAIDI in plain language)
What counts as a SAIDI outage — do brief flickers matter?
In most countries SAIDI focuses on sustained interruptions (often outages longer than a set threshold, such as 1–5 minutes). Very short “momentary” events may be tracked separately, depending on the regulator’s definition.
Why can two countries report “SAIDI” but still not be fully comparable?
Regulators may differ on whether planned outages are included, whether “major events” are excluded, and what minimum duration qualifies. That is why this ranking publishes the year and a scope note for every country.
Is low SAIDI always good — does it have a cost trade-off?
Yes. Very high reliability can require large investments (undergrounding, redundancy, automation). Regulators balance reliability with affordability, which is why some systems target “good enough” performance rather than the absolute minimum SAIDI.
Should I use SAIDI or SAIFI when assessing reliability?
Use both. SAIFI captures how frequently interruptions occur, while SAIDI captures total duration. A system can have frequent short outages (higher SAIFI) but still moderate SAIDI — or rare outages that last a long time.
Why do some countries show big year-to-year changes?
Extreme weather, major equipment failures, and methodological changes (for example excluding exceptional events) can move SAIDI substantially. A multi-year view is usually more informative than a single year.
Does a national SAIDI reflect rural areas too?
Not always. Some published metrics focus on major networks or specific service territories. When coverage is not fully national, StatRanker flags it in the scope notes and sources.
Interactive Top 10 table and trend view
Use search, region filtering, and sorting to explore the Top 10 dataset. A unit toggle is provided (minutes ↔ hours). The chart below illustrates how reliability can drift over time, using two official series snapshots.
| Rank | Country | SAIDI | Year | Region | Scope note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Singapore | 0.26 min 0.0043 h | 2024 | Asia | Sustained interruptions (official reporting) |
| 2 | Switzerland | 8.0 min 0.1333 h | 2023 | Europe | National reporting per regulator definition |
| 3 | South Korea | 8.92 min 0.1487 h | 2022 | Asia | Utility KPI published for outage time |
| 4 | Germany | 11.7 min 0.1950 h | 2024 | Europe | Interruption duration per final customer |
| 5 | Luxembourg | 13.4 min 0.2233 h | 2024 | Europe | Non-planned interruptions (benchmarking) |
| 6 | Netherlands | 23.9 min 0.3983 h | 2024 | Europe | Annual outage duration (national reporting) |
| 7 | Japan | 24.0 min 0.4000 h | FY2024 | Asia | National quality-of-supply dataset |
| 8 | Denmark | 29.7 min 0.4950 h | 2023 | Europe | Average interruption time (national report) |
| 9 | Austria | 37.72 min 0.6287 h | 2022 | Europe | Excluding regional exceptional events |
| 10 | United Kingdom | 39.71 min 0.6618 h | 2024/25 | Europe | Customer Minutes Lost (CML) sector total |
Tip: the unit toggle only changes display. Sorting and filtering always use the underlying minutes value.
Chart 2. Reliability over time (two official series snapshots)
Netherlands series uses calendar years (minutes). UK series uses the sector total Customer Minutes Lost (CML) by reporting year (SAIDI proxy).
Fallback (data shown if the chart does not load)
- Netherlands (annual outage duration): 2020 23.2, 2021 20.9, 2022 21.3, 2023 23.2, 2024 23.9 (minutes)
- United Kingdom (CML, sector total): 2023/24 42.48, 2024/25 39.71 (minutes)
Interpreting SAIDI: what improves reliability (and what can distort it)
The Top 10 pattern is consistent across mature power systems: strong distribution operations matter as much as asset quality. The difference between a 10-minute and a 40-minute SAIDI is often not “more generation” but faster fault isolation, better vegetation management, better component health monitoring, and incentives that reward restoration performance.
SAIDI should always be read alongside its context: geography and storm exposure, the share of underground cabling, and whether the published number includes planned interruptions or excludes “exceptional events”. In other words, a single year is informative, but a multi-year trend is the best way to understand sustained performance.
Policy takeaways (what Top performers do repeatedly)
Top performers typically have explicit service-quality targets and transparent reporting. Utilities are rewarded for sustained improvements and penalized for underperformance, which aligns capex planning with customer outcomes.
Remote switching, feeder automation, and modern distribution management systems shorten the time between fault detection and restoration. This is one of the most direct levers for lowering SAIDI.
Reliability improvements accelerate when utilities use outage data to prioritize reinforcement of specific feeders, substations, and components with repeated failures instead of “blanket” upgrades.
In weather-exposed areas, the most effective reliability programs combine selective undergrounding, stronger poles, improved clearance, and rapid storm restoration playbooks.
Rooftop solar, batteries, and microgrids can support reliability, but only when protection settings and interconnection standards are updated to avoid nuisance trips and complex fault behavior.
Methodological notes (what StatRanker stores per data point)
For each published value, StatRanker stores the year, publisher (regulator / system report), and the scope metadata: (1) sustained interruption threshold, (2) inclusion/exclusion of planned interruptions, (3) treatment of exceptional events, and (4) coverage (national vs service territory). This makes it possible to compare countries responsibly and to explain why two “SAIDI” values may not be strictly identical in definition.
Sources (official or regulator-published)
The links below point to the primary publications used to extract the exact SAIDI (or SAIDI-proxy) values shown in this ranking.
- Singapore — Energy Market Authority (EMA) publications portal: ema.gov.sg (Annual & sustainability reporting; SAIDI value used: 2024)
- Germany — Federal Network Agency press release (SAIDI 2024): bundesnetzagentur.de
- Luxembourg — ILR benchmarking (non-planned interruptions, 2024): web.ilr.lu
- Netherlands — Netbeheer Nederland “Betrouwbaarheid … Resultaten 2024” (annual outage duration, 2024): netbeheernederland.nl (PDF)
- United Kingdom — Ofgem ED2 annual summary report 2024/25 supplementary data (sector total CML): ofgem.gov.uk (XLSM)
- Austria — E-Control Annual Activity Report 2024 (reporting year 2023; SAIDI for survey year 2022): ceer.eu (PDF mirror)
- Switzerland — Electricity Commission (ElCom) publications portal: elcom.admin.ch (quality-of-supply reporting; SAIDI value used: 2023)
- Japan — Organization for Cross-regional Coordination of Transmission Operators (OCCTO) portal: occto.or.jp (Quality of Electricity Supply data; SAIDI value used: FY2024)
- Denmark — Forsyningstilsynet National Report Denmark 2025 (contains 2023 reliability KPI): forsyningstilsynet.dk (PDF)
- South Korea — Korea Standard Association reliability KPI page (SAIDI minutes KPI shown; value used: 2022): ksa.or.kr
Data note: the “best-performing” group is dominated by systems with mature distribution regulation and high operational readiness. Comparisons should always keep scope differences in view (planned outages, exceptional events, and reporting thresholds).
Download: SAIDI (Electricity Reliability) — tables & charts (ZIP)
Ready-to-use assets for the “Reliability of Electricity Supply (Outage Minutes per Year)” ranking.
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Top-10 table (CSV) Country, rank, SAIDI minutes/customer-year, year, region, scope note.
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Standalone table (HTML) Quick preview version of the Top-10 table.
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Charts (PNG + WEBP) Chart 1: Top-10 bar chart. Chart 2: trend snapshot line chart.
