Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

This report presents findings from the latest outreach effort to update the Interruption Cost Estimate (ICE) Calculator. The research team surveyed residential and non-residential members of 18 electric cooperatives across three U.S. regions (Southeast, Great Plains/Upper Midwest, and Intermountain West). The research was conducted by Resource Innovations, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory between February and December 2025. The team collected residential and non-residential survey responses using a rigorous willingness-to-pay methodology for households and direct cost measurement for businesses, examining interruption costs across a range of power interruption durations. Results show that interruption costs rise substantially with duration, but at a decreasing rate: residential members reported costs of $2 for a single momentary interruption up to $54 for a single 24-hour interruption, while non-residential members reported costs from $1,283 to $15,106 for the same durations. The study also found that rural cooperative members have higher adoption rates of backup generators. About 31% of residential respondents and 20% of non-residential respondents indicated they have backup generators installed. For comparison, 17% of residential and 14% of non-residential customers of investor-owned utilities reported owning backup generation as part of the broader initiative to update the ICE Calculator. These cooperative-specific findings will be combined with data from previous investor-owned utility surveying to produce an updated, more geographically-representative version of the ICE Calculator expected in early 2027.