[Gathering6678]

That makes sense. I am running a desktop PC as server, and a NAS for backup. Only the PC is protected by a UPS, and the NAS is directly connected to the socket. I can't recall experiencing any glitches actually...it was a bit more common ~20 years ago. Most of the outages were things like maintenance, or some guy at a construction site did something stupid.

As for the remote rural argument, I totally agree with you: it's just that I don't know about those places. What I said about affordability was regarding the article: I don't think Anker would be able to sell those in China, since those who might want one probably couldn't afford it.

[defrost]

I'm in Australia, typically I work remote areas, in the past globally (geophysical exploration) so I see power outages as "the norm" that you plan for.

Our cities (we only have a few big ones) all have pretty solid power delivery - as do most US large cities.

The US has "two" major grids, \1 most of the USofA, and 2\ Texas (which traditionally had minimal connection to elsewhere)

The \1 grid is most robust in the north east, patches into Canada (IIRC), and has some long connections to the West Coast.

Texas had some major outages in severe winter conditions, there's a whole story about that

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis

it's interesting as a systems failure.

Elsewhere in the US it's a function (by my guess) of how far some people are from major centres, whether there are major wildfires (california, and other parts), and if they're bridged across via "private" operators that have poor standards.

The US doesn't have uniform federal / state capital infrastructure (roads, rail, powerlines, telecomms, sewerage, water, etc) which is a strength / weakness depending on how people view these things.

[seanmcdirmid]

American regional grids aren’t strongly connected, you aren’t getting much electricity between America west (eg Washington state) and the mountain west grid (eg utah). There is one big connection between a coal plant in Utah and LA, everything else is just connected by lines with very small capacity. If the west coast somehow tripped…we have better chance of getting help from BC than Wyoming or Utah.