Regional diversity in the costs of electricity outages: Results for German counties

The aim of this study is to quantify the macroeconomic costs resulting from power outages at the level of German counties. We choose a well-established methodology that both accounts for production losses of firms and losses in well-being of consumers. As a main result, we identify a North-South divide in the vulnerability of German counties, with counties in southern Germany tending to face larger losses. We discuss the implications of our results for the debate on network expansion in Germany, suggesting that measures to raise public acceptance as well as investment incentives should be undertaken.