Second Annual Electric Utility Customer Value Ranking™ Released

How Does Your Investor-Owned Utility Fare?

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Apr 24, 2018, 09:13 ET

LAKEWOOD, Colo., April 24, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today the Wired Group released its 2^nd annual Customer Value Ranking™ of US investor-owned electric distribution utilities. The 2017 Ranking will be published in the April issue of the Electricity Journal in a Wired Group article describing the use of benchmarks to measure electric distribution utility performance.[1]

Growth in US investor-owned utility distribution grid assets relative to deteriorating, weather-normalized reliabilty (System Average Interruption Duration Index without Major Event Days), 2013-2016

Growth in US investor-owned utility distribution grid assets relative to Operations and Maintenance Spending Increases, 2010-2016

As with last year's Customer Value Ranking, the Wired Group employed its Utility Evaluator™ software to sort through publicly-available performance data on investor-owned electric distribution utilities in four Ranking determinants: capital investment; operations and maintenance spending; reliability; and customer satisfaction.

"Given exceptional growth in utilities' grid investments in recent years, concern about the benefits customers are getting in return is growing," explained Wired Group president and author Paul J. Alvarez. "Performance-based regulation is now being considered in regulatory proceedings in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, and Rhode Island. Utility Evaluator benchmarking capabilities were specifically designed to add rigor to electric distribution performance measurement in a cost-effective manner."

"Publicly-available data indicates performance concerns are warranted," continued Alvarez. "Reliability improvements and spending reductions, claimed by utilities as grid investment benefits, are not apparent (see charts)."

The full 2017 Customer Value Ranking is available at www.utilityevaluator.com/customer-value-rankings.html. Top 10 Electric IOUs in 2017 include:

1	Florida Power and Light	6	Northern States Power – Minnesota
2	Public Service Colorado	7	Northern States Power – Wisconsin
3	Indianapolis Power and Light	8	Public Service Electric and Gas
4	MidAmerican Energy	9	Toledo Edison
5	PPL Electric	10	Wisconsin Electric

About the Wired Group

The Wired Group helps clients unleash latent value in distribution utility businesses. Consumer and environmental advocates, state regulatory staff, non-profit utilities, utility suppliers, and industry associations ask the Wired Group to provide objective information, decision support, and expert services for critical distribution business issues including grid modernization, demand response, and distributed energy resources. To learn more about the Wired Group, its team, and its contributions to the distribution utility industry, visit www.wiredgroup.net.

About the Utility Evaluator

The Utility Evaluator™ simplifies utility performance benchmarking, and makes it credible. Developed by the Wired Group and available via the internet on a subscription basis, the application combines publicly-available utility performance data from a variety of reputable sources into a single data repository. Aided by an intuitive interface, users access pre-defined queries to quantify utility performance on more than 30 metrics including reliability, spending, investment, customer satisfaction, and demand-side management program performance. Significantly, users can define peer groups for benchmarking purposes, using utility characteristics to control for factors which could impact utility performance. To learn more about the Utility Evaluator, visit www.utilityevaluator.com.

About Paul J. Alvarez

Paul J. Alvarez is founder and president of The Wired Group. Active in the utility industry for almost two decades, Alvarez has testified before state utility regulators in California, Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania regarding grid modernization and performance measurement. His research and his book, Smart Grid Hype & Reality, identify missed opportunities to deliver customer benefits from massive grid investment. Now in its second edition, the book documents the dramatic differences between customer/community needs and utility motivations as driven by existing compensation models. Mr. Alvarez is an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado's Global Energy Management program, and an instructor at Michigan State University's Institute for Public Utilities. He holds degrees in business and management from Indiana University and Northwestern University.