When it comes to reliability, public power utilities lead the nation. It’s not just in our taglines and messages to customers; it is an ethic and a point of pride in how we serve our communities.
In any particular season, reliability comes into the public consciousness through outages impacted by the twists of extreme weather and other notable events. Day to day, though, utility pros know that targeted maintenance, smart system design, proper investment, and customer education make for a better working grid across the entire system.
This hard work pays off. Year after year, public power utilities have the overall lowest outage time of any utility type by a significant margin. Public power’s average outage time per customer, or system average interruption duration index (SAIDI), is often half the time of the average outage experienced by customers of other types of utilities, with or without major events. Looking at the latest comparable data from the Energy Information Administration from 2022, public power customers spent an average of about 90 fewer minutes without power than customers of other utility types, outside of major events. Even in major events, public power customers experienced nearly three fewer outage hours than the average customer of other utility types.
The importance of keeping the power flowing for public safety is paramount in the mind of the policymakers and managers at all levels, and of the hardworking crews who maintain and restore local distribution systems, including those of neighboring utilities during mutual aid events. Behind public power’s consistent and clear edge across various reliability indices is a lot of effort in planning, perseverance, and collaboration. Yet concern over reliability is growing, even outside of major events. Issues around supply chain, workforce, grid security, permitting, and resource adequacy are just some of the areas in which public power is actively working to ensure a reliable system.
This issue of Public Power covers some of the challenges to maintaining reliability, whether in securing adequate long-term power supply, contending with extreme weather, mitigating threats to grid security, or being able to procure the right equipment and materials in a timely manner. The need to grow — and support economically sustainable growth — also underscores why many public power utilities have an “all of the above” strategy for a diverse power supply.
Many of the members featured throughout this issue are designated as APPA Reliable Public Power Providers, or RP3 utilities. Many also are among the hundreds of utilities subscribed to the eReliability Tracker, which has helped public power utilities identify potential problems and target system improvements for more than a decade.
Outside of the many benefits to customers in maintaining a reliable system, this dedication to excellence helps public power as a whole continue to prove that our model not only works but is setting the industry standard. Through our programs, advocacy, education, and communications, we remain committed to helping your communities maintain the reliability advantage and prepare for whatever the future holds.
