Assertion Supported AI assessment confidence: 95% certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

The US Loses $150 Billion in Economic Output Annually From Power Outages

Mark Moffat · Will AI Make Its Biggest Splash In Industrial Use Cases? — With Mark Moffat, IFS · Nov 25, 2025 · at 22:27

Mark Moffat, CEO of IFS, discusses how optimizing existing electrical grid infrastructure could alleviate the energy crunch driven by AI demand.

0:00 / 0:09exact quote · 9.5s

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“The stat that caught my eye was that there's a hundred and fifty billion output a year that's lost in the US as a result of outages, right?”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

The United States loses $150 billion in economic output per year as a result of electrical power outages.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

Mark Moffat referenced a prominent, widely cited statistic regarding the economic cost of electrical power interruptions in the United States. Authoritative energy research and government publications validate this figure: the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy officially stated in 2018 that DOE estimates power outages cost American businesses approximately $150 billion per year. This figure traces back to foundational grid reliability studies conducted by Sandia National Laboratories for the DOE (which estimated annual costs at $150 billion) and aligns with Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) ranges of $119 billion to $188 billion per year.

In January 2018, the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy published that the 'U.S. Department of Energy estimates power outages are costing American businesses around $150 billion per year.'
A foundational 1998 DOE-funded study by Sandia National Laboratories (Swaminathan & Sen) estimated national reliability and outage costs at approximately $150 billion annually.
A 2001 EPRI study estimated annual outage and power disruption costs between $119 billion and $188 billion, consistent with the cited $150 billion figure.

Checked against

[1] energy.gov [2] bloomenergy.com [3] pinkerton.com [4] acrt.com [5] energy.gov [6] energy.gov [7] energy.gov [8] environmentenergyleader.com

annual cost power outages US economy 150 billion cost of power outages United States 150 billion Lawrence Berkeley Department of Energy economic cost of electrical power outages US 150 billion per year

assessed as of 2026-09-02

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

Siemens United States

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