Rocky Mount Public Utilities (RMPU) has received national recognition for achieving exceptional electric reliability in 2017. Roy Jones, chief executive officer of ElectriCities of North Carolina, Inc., presented the city of Rocky Mount with the Certificate of Excellence in Reliability at the city council meeting on Monday.
The recognition comes from the American Public Power Association (APPA), a trade group that represents more than 2,000 not-for-profit, community-owned electric utilities. The Association helps members track outage and restoration data through its subscription-based eReliability Tracker service and then compares the data to national statistics tracked by the U.S. Energy Information Administration for all types of electric utilities.
“This recognition helps demonstrate public power’s commitment to reliable electric service,” said Michael Hyland, APPA’s senior vice president of engineering services.
Public power has a strong track record of reliability, said Hyland. Nationwide, the average public power customer has their lights out for less than half the time, compared to other types of utilities.
The eReliability Tracker compared data provided by 253 utilities using industry standard metrics to evaluate each utility’s reliability of service. One such metric is the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI). SAIDI is calculated by dividing the sum of all customer interruption durations within the specified time frame by the average number of customers served during that period. RMPU’s SAIDI in 2017 was 48.5 minutes compared to the average SAIDI for all eReliability Tracker utilities which was 161.8 minutes. The average SAIDI for utilities within the same region and with a similar customer size was 227.7 minutes and 94.4 minutes, respectively.
“We are proud to receive this recognition,” said Rich Worsinger, director of Energy Resources. “Last year, we received the Diamond Level in APPA’s Reliable Public Power Provider (RP3) Award for the fifth time. RP3 recognizes public power utilities for their business practices and their commitment to the safe and reliable delivery of electricity. Receiving this additional reliability award from APPA is truly a testament to the hard work of all our staff to ensure that the lights stay on for all our customers.”