Electric department recognized for reliability

The city of Siloam Springs Electric Department has received national recognition for achieving exceptional electric reliability in 2017.

The recognition comes from the American Public Power Association (www.PublicPower.org), a trade group that represents more than 2,000 not-for-profit, community-owned electric utilities.

The association helps members track outage and restoration data through its subscriptionbased e-Reliability Tracker service and then compares the data to national statistics tracked by the U.S. Energy Information Administration for all types of electric utilities.

“This recognition helps demonstrate public power’s commitment to reliable electric service,” said Michael Hyland, the association’s senior vice president of engineering services.

Public power has a strong track record of reliability, said Hyland. Nationwide, the average public power customer has their lights out for less than half the time, compared to other types of utilities.

“We are proud to receive this recognition. It is a testament to

the hard work of all our staff to ensure that the lights stay on for all our customers,” said Phil Stokes, electric director at the city of Siloam Springs.

In 2017 crews added or converted portions of three of the main feeder lines to underground.

Additionally, portions of the transmission line were rerouted for reliability.

The city of Siloam Springs Electric Department has a reliability rating of 99.9949 percent. The average total outage time for an electric company is 129 minutes per year; in total Siloam Springs customers had only 26.57 outage minutes in 2017.