7 Utilities Receive the National Reliability Award

PA Consulting (PA), the consultancy that's bringing ingenuity to life, awarded seven utility companies with the National Reliability Award at the 22nd Annual ReliabilityOne Awards ceremony.

The ReliabilityOne Awards recognize North American utilities that excelled during the 2021 calendar year in critical industry categories such as resiliency, reliability, technology and innovation, sustainability, and customer engagement.

Founded in 2000, PA Consulting's ReliabilityOne Awards honors the electric utility industry, recognizing organizations that provide their customers with the highest levels of reliability and resiliency.

The following companies were awarded:

• West Region (Metropolitan) – San Diego Gas & Electric
• Mid-Atlantic Region (Metropolitan) – Public Service Electric and Gas Company
• Northeast Region (Metropolitan) – Consolidated Edison Company of New York
• Northeast Region (Suburban and Rural) – Orange and Rockland Utilities
• Southeast Region (Metropolitan) – Florida Power & Light Company
• Midwest Region (Metropolitan) – Commonwealth Edison
• Mountain Region (Suburban and Rural) – Public Service Company of New Mexico

Raising the Bar With Resiliency

Derek HasBrouck, PA Consulting's ReliabilityOne Co-Program Director, said, "Congratulations to Florida Power & Light and all this year's winners. PA works with the top utilities in America, and those that participate in the ReliabilityOne program, on average, experienced 35% fewer sustained outages, and outages were 50% shorter than the average US investor-owned utility. This proves that program participation leads to tangible benefits to consumers."

PA analyzes the nation's electric utility industry using publicly available information on the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI), which provides the average outage duration per customer, and System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI), which measures the average number of interruptions per customer.

The indices show a very slight decrease in IOU (investor-owned utility) average system outage duration by a half minute in 2021 to 122 minutes, compared to the previous year.

Key to the utility reliability trend data is PA's in-depth analysis, undertaken as part of the process to identify the top-performing utilities and ReliabilityOne award recipients.

Utility Companies’ Achievements

PA's certification and analyses of the utilities in the ReliabilityOne program found that:

• IOUs in 2021 saw a slight decrease in average outage frequency and a slight increase in average outage duration compared to 2020.
• Average SAIDI performance of the ReliabilityOne award recipients decreased by approximately a minute from 2020 to 2021. ReliabilityOne award recipients' average SAIDI is 50% lower, or about 59 minutes better, than the average US IOU's SAIDI.
• ReliabilityOne award recipients experienced 35% lower SAIFI than the average U.S. IOU.
• Utilities are working to meet broader climate change, sustainability, and clean economy goals and objectives by incorporating electric vehicles, electrified buildings, ports, and distribution of interconnected resources into reliable operations.
• Utilities are using technologies that provide more comprehensive situational awareness of their service territory, assets, and customers.

PA recognized regional ReliabilityOne award recipients from utilities across the US, based on overall system-wide SAIDI and SAIFI performance.

Regional awards criteria reflect unique challenges for utilities serving metropolitan locations and those serving suburban and rural locations.

Additional categories honored utilities for Outstanding System Resiliency, Outstanding Grid Sustainability, Outstanding Technology and Innovation, and Outstanding Customer Engagement.

Two U.S. utilities also won the ReliabilityOne National Reliability Award in 2021 — Florida Power & Light and San Diego Gas & Electric. Those two companies were the top two performers in 2020 with consistent efforts in improving customer restoration.