Florida utility garners national award

For the fourth time in five years, the Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) has won PA Consulting’s 2019 ReliabilityOne National Reliability Excellence Award.

“We are honored to have won the national award for best-in-nation reliability for another consecutive year,” Eric Silagy, president and CEO of FPL, said. “Winning this award four out of the last five years is unprecedented for us and reflects our employees’ commitment to deliver affordable, reliable energy to the more than five million customers we serve. The men and women of FPL have worked tirelessly since Hurricane Wilma in 2005 to build the nation’s most intelligent and reliable energy grid. Our customers are seeing the benefit: millions of interruptions avoided, faster restorations during hurricanes and severe weather, and a more than 30 percent increase in day-to-day service reliability over the last decade.”

FPL was recognized for its service reliability to the company’s more than 5 million customer accounts.

FPL investments to the grid to enhance customer reliability, include hardening more than 50 percent of main power lines serving critical community facilities and services, such as police and fire stations, hospitals and 911 centers; and installing more than 5 million smart meters and more than 120,000 intelligent devices along the energy grid using advanced technology that helps detect problems and restore service faster if outages occur. Investments also include clearing trees and other vegetation, a major cause of power outages, from more than 15,000 miles of power lines annually, and completing one full inspection of the company’s 1.2 million power poles and upgrading or replacing those that no longer meet FPL’s standards for strength.