The electric utilities for the City of Perry and the City of Marlow both received national recognition from the American Public Power Association (APPA), a trade group that represents more than 2,000 municipal-owned electric utilities.
Perry’s was for its reliability numbers from 2019, while Marlow was honored for its safety practices during the same year.
The APPA helps utilities track power outage and restoration data through its eReliability Tracker service and compares the data to national statistics tracked by the U.S. Energy Information Administration for all types of utilities.
Based on that data, Perry was in the top 25 percent of utilities for System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI), which divides the total number of outages by the number of customers served. That allowed Perry to qualify for the 2019 Certificate of Excellence in Reliability.
Both Perry and Marlow receive their wholesale power from the Oklahoma Municipal Power Authority.
“Community-owned public power utilities have an excellent record when it comes to reliability,” said Alex Hoffman, Senior Director of Energy and Environmental Services for the APPA. “These utilities are the best of the best when it comes to keep the lights on in their communities.”
Nationally, the average public power customer has their lights out for less than half the time, compared to other types of utilities.
Marlow earned the APPA’s Safety Award of Excellence for safe operating practices in 2019. The utility earned a first-place award in the category for utilities with 15,000 worker-hours of annual worker exposure.
“Strong safety programs are essential to ensuring that electric utility employees are informed and trained on safe work procedures,” said Brandon Wylie, Chair of the Association’s Safety Committee and Director of Training & Safety at Electric Cities of Georgia. “The utilities receiving this award have proven that protecting the safety of their employees is a top priority.”
For more information on Oklahoma’s public power utilities, go to ourlocalpower.org.
