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Locally Owned Utilities Shine at Providing Reliable Electricity

Municipal utility customers enjoy quicker repairs and shorter outages

ORLANDO, Fla., July 7, 2015 – Customers of many of Florida’s locally owned electric utilities enjoyed quicker repairs and shorter outages than many customers of private utilities in 2014, according to a new report.

The report, compiled by the Florida Municipal Power Agency, tracks the reliability of the electric distribution systems of 24 municipal electric utilities in Florida and compares them to publicly available data for Florida’s investor-owned utilities. Measuring distribution reliability enables utilities to gauge their performance, evaluate procedures and ensure high levels of service to their customers.

Locally owned utilities excelled in reliability metrics including:

  • Customer Average Interruption Duration Index measures the average repair time for customers experiencing an outage. For the participating locally owned utilities, the average time to repair outages is quicker than the average repair time for all of the investor-owned utilities. Municipal utilities have led this category for the past 11 years.
  • L-Bar measures the average length of a service interruption. Based on the L-Bar reported for the investor-owned utilities, the average length of outages for the participating municipal electric utilities was shorter than four of the five investor-owned utilities.
  • System Average Interruption Duration Index measures the average duration of interruptions for customers on the utility’s distribution system. The average duration of interruptions on the distribution system for participating municipal electric utilities was the third best.
  • Overall, the participating municipal electric utilities were first or second on three out of five measures among the utilities benchmarked. While the frequency of outages, measured by System Average Interruption Frequency Index, was second to the highest in the state for the municipal utilities, the length of outages and repair time were among the shortest in the state.

“Keeping the lights on has long been a hallmark for locally owned utilities,” said FMPA General Manager and CEO Nicholas P. Guarriello. “I commend Florida’s locally owned utilities for their dedication to measurement and continuous improvement of their system reliability.”

More information about reliability and the other advantages of Florida’s locally owned electric utilities can be found at www.homepoweradvantage.com.

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Florida Municipal Power Agency (FMPA) is a wholesale power company owned by 31 municipal electric utilities. FMPA provides economies of scale in power generation and related services to support community-owned electric utilities. The members of FMPA serve approximately two million Floridians.

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