Live US Power Grid Status Map — real-time electricity demand by region
What the colors mean
Every hour, each regional grid operator reports actual electricity demand and a day-ahead forecast to the US Energy Information Administration. This map computes a ratio — demand divided by the day-ahead forecast (or the region's recent peak when no forecast is published) — and colors each sector by how close demand is running to what was expected: green with headroom, amber and orange as it tightens, red when demand meets or exceeds the forecast.
This is a heuristic, not an official grid alert. A sector reading “STRESS” means measured demand is close to the operator's own forecast. A genuine ERCOT (EEA) or CAISO (Flex Alert) emergency does override a sector to CRITICAL — but for official conditions always check your grid operator directly.
EIA Open Data — refreshed on an interval
Region demand and forecast come from the EIA Open Data API (electricity/rto/region-data), cached briefly and refreshed here every 45 seconds, with real emergency overrides polled from ERCOT and CAISO. If a reading goes stale or the feed drops, the map holds its last known state and says so, rather than going blank.
Common questions
- Is the US power grid down right now?
- This page shows a live, color-coded view of electricity demand across all 13 EIA grid regions. Green means demand is running comfortably below the day-ahead forecast; amber, orange, and red mean it's tightening. It's a demand-pressure heuristic, not an official outage feed — for confirmed outages and emergencies, check your utility or grid operator (ERCOT, CAISO, PJM, MISO).
- What do the colors on the grid map mean?
- Each region is colored by the ratio of actual demand to its day-ahead forecast: green (normal, under ~90%), amber (elevated), orange (stress), and red (critical — demand at or over forecast, or a declared operator emergency). It is a heuristic, not an official grid alert.
- How often does the grid map update?
- About every 45 seconds. Region demand and day-ahead forecasts come from the EIA Open Data API, cached briefly and refreshed on an interval. If the feed drops, the map holds its last known state instead of going blank.
- What are the three US power grid interconnections?
- The Eastern Interconnection, the Western Interconnection, and the Texas Interconnection (ERCOT). They run largely independently and are tied together at only a few points. The map groups all 13 EIA regions into these three grids and wires each region to its hub.
- Where does the grid data come from?
- The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) Open Data API — specifically hourly demand and day-ahead demand forecast by region. Declared emergencies are polled from ERCOT and CAISO. The map deliberately does not use or scrape poweroutage.us.
- Does this map show power outages?
- No. It shows grid demand pressure, not customer outage counts. Outage counts are a separate, paid dataset. Use this map to watch grid strain in real time; use your utility's outage map for confirmed local outages.
- Is the US power grid getting more fragile?
- Demand is rising — electrification, EVs, and data centers all add load — while much of the transmission and generation infrastructure is aging, and extreme weather increasingly pushes regions toward their limits. Watching demand against forecast is one simple way to see when a region is running hot.
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Informational only. Not affiliated with the EIA or any grid operator. Do not use this map for operational or emergency decisions.