Power Outage Statistics in Greece: What 50,000 Community Reports Reveal

Since launching in 2025, Outage.gr has become Greece's primary crowdsourced utility outage tracker. Our community has submitted and verified tens of thousands of reports covering power, water, and internet disruptions from Athens to the smallest Aegean islands. This analysis examines what that data reveals about utility reliability across the country.

The Scale of the Data

Our database now contains over 50,000 community-verified outage reports. Every entry was submitted anonymously by a resident, confirmed by at least one neighbour using the "Me Too" button, and timestamped to the minute. This level of granularity allows us to build a picture of Greek utility reliability that no official source currently provides.

Power outages account for approximately 68% of all reports on our platform, followed by internet disruptions at 22%, and water supply failures at 10%. This distribution reflects both the relative frequency of each type of disruption and the urgency residents feel when the lights go out — power outages are simply more immediately noticeable and disruptive than a slow drop in water pressure.

Frequency: How Often Do Outages Occur?

Based on our data, Greece experiences roughly 300 to 500 community-reported outage events per week during normal periods, rising significantly during extreme weather. During the summer heatwaves of 2025, our tracker recorded over 1,200 reports in a single week — a 300% spike above the seasonal baseline.

The cities with the highest absolute number of reports are Athens, Thessaloniki, and Patra — a reflection of their large populations rather than particularly poor infrastructure. When we normalise by population, smaller municipalities in Epirus, Western Macedonia, and some island communities show higher per-capita outage rates, consistent with older infrastructure and more challenging terrain for maintenance crews.

Duration: How Long Do Outages Last?

Average restoration times vary considerably by region, time of day, and severity. Across all resolved reports on our platform:

• Urban areas (Athens, Thessaloniki, Patra): median restoration time of approximately 1 hour 45 minutes
• Suburban and semi-urban areas: median of approximately 2 hours 30 minutes
• Rural areas and island communities: median of approximately 3 hours 45 minutes

These figures are computed from reports where both a start timestamp (the original submission) and an end timestamp (when the reporter marked it resolved) exist. Approximately 35% of reports are eventually marked resolved; the remainder expire naturally from the map after one hour of inactivity without being formally resolved.

DEDDIE's own published service level targets call for restoration within four hours in 85% of cases for low-voltage network faults. Our community data broadly confirms they meet this target in urban areas, though island and mountainous regions frequently exceed it.

Seasonal Patterns

Greek utility outages follow clear seasonal patterns. Our data shows three distinct peaks:

Summer (July–August): The highest volume period for all outage types. Power outages spike during heatwaves as air conditioning load strains the grid. The combination of high demand and aged infrastructure creates the conditions for both equipment failures and intentional load shedding.

Autumn storm season (October–November): The second major peak. Mediterranean cyclones, particularly those originating near Libya and tracking northeast, cause the most damaging infrastructure events. Fallen lines and flooded substations are the most common causes of extended outages during this period.

Winter cold snaps (January–February): A smaller but notable peak, particularly in mountainous regions of northern Greece. Snow and ice loading on overhead lines, combined with higher heating demand, creates outage conditions similar in character to the summer peak but geographically concentrated in the north.

Spring (March–May) is consistently the lowest-outage period in our dataset, with report volumes running 40–60% below the summer peak.

Internet Outages and ISP Patterns

Internet outage reports on our platform reveal patterns that differ from power outages in important ways. Many internet outages are actually secondary effects of power cuts — when the local substation or the customer's router loses power, the internet connection also drops. We cannot distinguish these from true ISP-side failures using only community reports, but examining reports where utility type is "internet" while no concurrent power reports exist in the same area gives us a rough picture of genuine ISP failures.

Based on this filtered view, Cosmote (OTE Group) has the highest absolute number of internet outage reports — consistent with it being by far the largest provider in Greece. Vodafone and Nova follow, with DIGI, the newer fiber-focused provider, showing significantly fewer reports relative to its growing subscriber base.

The areas most affected by standalone internet outages (not co-incident with power cuts) tend to cluster around major urban centres during periods of high network load, suggesting congestion as a driver rather than infrastructure damage.

Implications for Residents

This data has practical implications for Greek residents. If you live in an area with high outage frequency — visible on each city's dedicated page on Outage.gr — you have a stronger basis for consumer protection action, both individually and collectively.

Individual residents who experience power outages that damage electrical appliances are entitled to compensation of up to €600 per incident under RAE Decision 1151A/2019. The key requirement is reporting the outage to DEDDIE at 11500 on the day it happens and filing a formal claim within 20 working days. Outage.gr reports serve as timestamped supporting documentation.

Residents who believe their area has systemic reliability problems can escalate complaints to RAAEY (the Regulatory Authority for Energy), citing the documented frequency and duration of outages. A pattern of community reports covering the same area over multiple months provides strong evidence for such complaints.

Methodology Note

All figures in this analysis are derived from Outage.gr's own database. Our data represents community-reported and community-verified outages — it captures disruptions that affected real residents and were confirmed by neighbours. It does not capture outages that went unreported (likely more common in rural areas with lower app adoption) or outages that were very brief (under 10 minutes, which rarely attract reports). The data should be understood as a floor estimate of actual outage frequency, not a ceiling.

We update our analysis as new data accumulates. City-level statistics are visible in real time on each city's dedicated page on our platform. For the most current picture of outages in your area, see the outage history and average restoration time on your city's page.