Calhoun electric earns pair of national awards

The City of Calhoun Electric Department picked up a pair of major national-level awards recently, and was also thanked by the City of Newnan for help with tornado recovery efforts.

Each year the American Public Power Association compares member data to national statistics tracked by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This year Calhoun received a Certificate of Excellence in Reliability as a result of those findings.

“Public Power Utilities have proven their commitment to serving their community by continuing to lead the nation in reliability,” APPA Vice President or Technical and Operations Services Alex Hofmann said. “These utilities are the best of the best when it comes to keeping the lights on in their communities.”

Also earned by the electric department from the APPA was the Reliable Public Power Provider designation, given to public nonprofit public power utilities that “exhibit operational excellence” in the categories of reliability, safety, workforce development and safety improvement.

Calhoun earned a highest level Diamond designation of 98100% level of achievement in best practices and results. The city’s electric department was given a 99% overall proficiency rating, in part due to a low average interruption duration time of 59 minutes. This statistic is compared to the APPA’s member average of 139 minutes and a national average of 267 minutes as measured by the System Average Interruption Duration Index.

“They do a great job,” Councilman George Crowley said.

Finally, the city council acknowledged a letter from City of Newnan General Manager Dennis McEntire thanking the Calhoun Electric Department for help with power restoration after the March 26 EF-4 tornado.

“We want to personally thank you for allowing your crews to join Newnan Utilities in the monumental task we faced,” the letter reads. “Together we were able to restore service to over 6,000 our 10,000 total electric customers, replace 227 poles, replace 70 transformers and

return some sense of normalcy to the residents of our city in just days.”

The department dispatched a crew comprised of Brett Sane, Matt Rains, Dennis Henry, Colter Faith, Nathan Phillips, Willie Pritchett and Nathan Stokes to work with Newnan Utilities.

“We certainly thank them for taking the time for that, as we’ve needed those services ourselves, so we really appreciate it,” Mayor Jimmy

Palmer said.

City Utilities Administrator Larry Vickery said the electric department makes a point to recognize its workers regularly when asked by Councilwoman Jackie Palazzolo if anything special was planned for the upcoming National Line Workers Appreciation Day on April 18.

“We cook our fair share of hot dogs, and don’t wait for national awards or holidays for that,” Vickery said.