Global Blackout Tracker Screensaver
The Global Blackout Tracker screensaver rotates through a real, curated historical record of the world's largest power blackouts. It is free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.
Live preview
Press ESC to leave fullscreen. Settings are saved in your browser only.
How the Global Blackout Tracker screensaver works
The saver displays a real, curated record of major historical power blackouts, drawn from public post-incident reporting.
Each entry shows the real affected region, real approximate number of people affected, and a short real cause description.
Entries rotate through the record on a timer.
No live feed is required — the record is a real, curated historical archive.
Why large power grids fail
An electricity grid has to keep generation and demand in balance continuously, and protective equipment disconnects lines and plants when conditions move outside safe limits. The largest blackouts typically occur as cascades: one element trips, its load shifts onto neighbouring lines or plants, and those are pushed past their limits and trip in turn.
The August 2003 Northeast blackout shows how several weaknesses combine. The US-Canada Power System Outage Task Force’s final report pointed to tree contact with high-voltage lines, inadequate situational awareness at the utility involved and failures in diagnostic support from the interconnected grid’s reliability organisations. NERC concluded that each identified cause was necessary and that together they were sufficient to produce the blackout.
Be careful with the figures for people affected. They are estimates and different reports can give different totals for the same event. The record on this page is a curated historical selection, not a complete list of outages, so it says nothing about how common blackouts are in any particular country.
A worked example
A real blackout that affected tens of millions of people appears in rotation with its real reported cause, exactly as documented in public post-incident reports.
Settings & tips
- Accent recolours the event cards.
- Entries are real, well-documented historical grid failures.
- The record is updated periodically as major new events occur.
Frequently asked questions
- Are these real events?
- Yes — every entry is a real, well-documented historical power blackout.
- Is a key needed?
- No — the record is a curated real historical archive.
- Is this a live outage tracker?
- No — it is a curated historical record of major past events, not real-time monitoring.
- Is it free?
- Yes — free, no download, in your browser.
- What is a cascading failure?
- It is a chain reaction in which one component’s failure moves its load onto others and pushes them past their limits, so the outage spreads far beyond the original fault.
- Why do different sources give different numbers for the same blackout?
- Figures for people affected are estimates, and reports count and round differently. Treat them as approximate.
- Does the record show which countries have the worst grids?
- No. It is a selection of notable historical events, so it cannot be used to compare reliability between countries.