Central Maine Power surpasses state 2023 service performance standards
Central Maine Power Co. (CMP) has exceeded performance standards set by the Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC), according to its first-ever service quality report.
“We are proud of the progress we continue to make as we invest in a smarter, stronger, and cleaner power grid for our customers,” said CMP President and CEO Joe Purington on May 1.
CMP, a subsidiary of AVANGRID Inc. that serves more than 636,000 electricity customers in an 11,000-square-mile service area in central and southern Maine, filed its Service Quality Index (SQI) Report Card with the Maine PUC in April, more than a month before the statutory deadline.
The electric utility in 2023 went above and beyond state regulators’ performance standards, which accounted for service performance data collected outside major weather events like Hurricane Lee and the Dec. 18, 2023 windstorm.
“Last winter brought some of the worst storms in our company’s history,” Purington said. “Yet, in the face of these challenging conditions, our employees remained committed to exceeding the performance metrics set by the Maine PUC for customer service and electric service reliability.”
The company’s SQI Report Card consists of three components: customer service performance, electric service reliability, and environment and community.
Customer service performance data, which illustrates the performance of CMP’s customer service functions, such as billing accuracy, meters read, and the handling of customer contact calls, is a component of the report card that’s required by law and does not include major storm events, the company said.
In 2023, CMP outdid the Maine PUC’s service standards with 99.9 percent of bills issued accurately within 10 days of the planned billing date, and 99.3 percent of bills based on actual meter reads, according to the report card, which added that more than 85 percent of calls were answered within 30 seconds or less.
Electric service reliability data, which shows the performance of CMP’s system for its customers and includes information such as the average amount of time a customer is without power during a single outage, also is a component of the report required by law and it also doesn’t include major storm events.
CMP in 2023 rose above the Maine PUC’s service standard for total hours in the year that an average customer was without power by 18 percent, and CMP also beat the service standard for time to restore power by 17 percent, the data shows.
Environment and community data, which highlights the impact of CMP’s grid planning and community relations teams, outlines how the power company helped and served the hundreds of cities and towns in its service area every day, the report card says.
CMP’s April report card was published following the company’s submission in December 2023 of its Climate Change Protection Plan (CCPP) to the Maine PUC. The CCPP serves as CMP’s roadmap for identifying solutions to challenges presented to Maine’s power grid in the face of more frequent and severe storms, the utility said.
Both reports are the result of Legislative Document No. 1959, An Act To Ensure Transmission and Distribution Utility Accountability, put forth by Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) and passed in 2022 by the Maine legislature.
In a February letter Purington sent to CMP customers that outlined the company’s priorities for 2024 and beyond, the CEO wrote that the company’s grid modernization plans to support the state’s growing and changing demand for electricity includes distributed resources, like solar power.
“We strongly support Maine’s Climate Action Goals and part of that means connecting renewable energy sources to the grid,” wrote Purington, noting that CMP has interconnected more than 500 megawatts (MW) of solar power to the grid since 2020 with more to come.
And with rapid economic growth unfolding across Maine, he said CMP is preparing now to support future community needs.
“We’ve made significant upgrades to our electrical infrastructure and are modeling usage scenarios to anticipate how and where populations will grow,” he wrote.
Purington also pointed out that one of the best tools CMP has available to combat climate change is electrification.
“Whether it’s installing more heat pumps in homes, partnering with businesses and organizations to install charging stations, or creating pilot programs to better understand how and when our customers are using electricity,” he wrote, “our team is building a smarter, stronger, more modern grid to support the growing and changing demand for electricity.”
