New Data Shows Utilities Carried Out 15.1 Million Shutoffs in 2024

Alison Coffey
June 3, 2026

Across the country, households are being strained by rising utility costs. Now, new data reveals how often utilities are shutting off the power of households unable to afford their bills: in 2024 alone, utilities shut off power to customers at least 15.1 million times. This number far surpasses previous estimates of annual service disconnections and illustrates the enormous scale of energy insecurity for households across the United States.

In April, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released a new report based on survey data collected from electric and gas utilities across the U.S. The 2024 Residential Utility Disconnections Report is the first time a federal agency has collected comprehensive data from utilities on this issue. Utilities were required to answer survey questions about the number of final disconnection notices sent, the number of shutoffs carried out, and the number of reconnections that occurred.

The findings are striking:

• In 2024, utilities sent 122 million final disconnection notices to residential customers, including 94.9 million notices for electric, and 27.1 million notices for gas customers.
• In 2024, utilities carried out 15.1 million residential shutoffs. 13.4 million of these were electricity disconnections, and 1.7 million were gas.
• In 2024, only 12.6 million residential customers had their service reconnected after a shutoff. This included 11.4 million electric and 1.2 million gas reconnections.

A closer look at the state-level data shows both regional patterns, as well as the national scope of the problem:

• States in the South experience the highest disconnection rates. When comparing the number of shutoffs to the total number of electric and gas customers in the state, Oklahoma has the highest combined shutoff rate at 33.2%. Closely following are Texas (25.2%), Alabama (22.3%), Florida
• (20.9%) and Louisiana (20.8%).
  In total numbers, the highest occurrences of shutoffs took place in Texas (3 million) and Florida (2.2 million) – two notoriously hot states that experience increasingly dangerous seasonal temperatures.
• Even in more progressive states with relatively lower shutoff rates, utilities are still carrying out hundreds of thousands of disconnections annually – including 482,000 in California, 294,000 in Illinois, 267,000 in New York, and 132,000 in Washington.

The EIA survey responses cover 96.1% of natural gas customers and 93.5% of electric customers in the U.S., making this the most extensive data ever collected on shutoffs.

New numbers far surpass previous estimates

Until now, utility service disconnections were extremely difficult to quantify. Previously, there was no federal requirement to report, and many states did not mandate that utilities provide these numbers. This lack of transparency both obscured the scale of the problem, and served as a barrier to accountability.

Prior to this EIA survey, researchers created estimates based on the very limited data available from certain states. Previously, the most commonly cited estimate was around 3 million shutoffs per year. Recognizing this estimate was undoubtedly an undercount, some experts estimated that annual disconnections were likely closer to 6 or 7 million. The new data shows that even those higher projections were vast underestimates compared to the EIA count of 15.1 million. Additionally, that 122 million final disconnection notices were sent that year reveals the enormous number of households on the verge of being shut off.

Shutoffs have severe consequences

When utility companies shut off power due to non-payment, households experience harmful consequences. This includes losing the ability to keep their home at a safe temperature, to refrigerate food and medication, to power life sustaining medical devices, to charge phones or use computers, and to wash and dry clothes. As a result, shutoffs can produce significant economic disruption, emotional distress, and physical harm.

A lack of adequate heat or air conditioning can lead to serious health impacts. When indoor temperatures reach unsafe levels, individuals can experience deadly temperature-related illnesses, such as hypothermia or heat stroke. Unsafe home temperatures may also exacerbate various health conditions, from respiratory and cardiovascular illness, to diabetes and kidney disease. As climate change brings about more extreme and unprecedented temperatures – from heat domes in the Pacific Northwest to prolonged freezes in the South – having energy to safely power home heating and cooling is increasingly a matter of life and death.

Low-income people, households of color, and other vulnerable groups are disproportionately impacted. Shutoffs reveal racial disparities, with Black households more likely to experience a shutoff due to nonpayment than white households, even when controlling for income. Additionally, seniors and people with disabilities or medical needs are especially vulnerable to harm when the power goes out.

Inadequate protections

Despite evidence of the harm that shutoffs produce, no federal shutoff protections exist. Some states have limited shutoff protections in place, but these do not go far enough to prevent harm to energy-insecure households. Existing state regulations take different forms. Some regulations aim to protect certain demographics, such as medically vulnerable people, elderly individuals, or young children – although households with other vulnerabilities beyond the established in a state’s definition are likely to fall through the cracks.

Weather-based protections can prevent shutoffs from occurring on specific days when extreme heat advisories are in place or when temperatures drop below freezing. In most cases, these temperature thresholds are dangerously high or low, and severe health consequences can occur before these thresholds are reached. While some states offer seasonal protections, which prevent shutoffs during summer or winter months, experiencing a power shut off at any time of year can still lead to a variety of serious consequences for a household’s health, financial stability, and overall wellbeing.

That 15.1 million electric and gas shutoffs occurred in 2024 makes clear that the existing partial protections are not working. Establishing and enforcing adequate protections against shutoffs is both urgent and vital.

While households struggle to pay their bills, utilities rake in record profits

While millions of households struggle to pay their energy bills and keep the lights on, investor-owned utilities (IOUs) are raising rates and bringing in record profits. Today, residential customers are paying an average 30% more for electricity and 39% more for methane gas than they were in 2019. In many places, ratepayers are feeling the strain of back-to-back rate hikes or multiple bill increases in a single year.

Yet, since 2021, IOUs have cumulatively made more than $200 billion in profit. Between 2021 and 2024, utilities kept an average of 13% of a customer's bill as profit, and preliminary data from 2025 shows this share has increased to almost 15%.

As these profit shares go up, utility CEOs reap even greater benefits. In 2025, the Energy & Policy Institute reports that CEOs of 51 corporate electric and gas utilities made over $626 million in total compensation, with many receiving multi-million dollar raises from previous years.

Utilities have the funds to invest in programs that could help eliminate disconnections. Reallocating a portion of their exorbitant profits toward energy efficiency and weatherization programs, low-income bill assistance, and utility debt forgiveness, for example, would help make progress toward reducing energy insecurity and eliminating the conditions that lead to shutoffs. Research from the Center for Biological Diversity has shown that for many of the worst-offender utilities in the United States, the cost of preventing shutoffs represents just a fraction of the dividends they pay out to their shareholders each year. Energy Equity Project reports that just 2% of corporate utility dividends nationally would forgive all unpaid utility debt in the country.

Meanwhile, state legislatures and public utility commissions have the ability to mandate maximal protections to prevent shutoffs. In fact, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many states implemented moratoria on utility disconnections, demonstrating that executive and legislative pathways to ending shutoffs exist as well. These bodies have a responsibility to ensure oversight and hold corporate utilities to account. They must do more to keep rates “just and reasonable” for everyday customers and prevent the harmful practice of service shutoffs.