PA Consulting Group announced the recipients of its annual ReliabilityOne and ServiceOne Awards last night at a reception at 7 World Trade Center in New York, before an audience that included senior management at leading utilities, industry regulators and energy industry experts. PA Consulting Group's ReliabilityOne awards recognize electric utilities for providing their customers with the highest levels of reliability in the industry, while the ServiceOne awards recognize companies for providing exceptional service to their customers.

ReliabilityOne Awards

PA Consulting Group recognized five Regional ReliabilityOne winners from utilities across the United States. The selections were based on overall system-wide performance in both outage duration and frequency. PA Consulting awarded its annual National ReliabilityOne Excellence Award to one of its regional winners that demonstrated sustained leadership, innovation and achievement in the area of electric reliability.

This year’s National ReliabilityOne Excellence Award was presented to Consolidated Edison Company of New York. Con Edison provides electric service to more than 3 million customers in New York City and most of Westchester County, and provides natural gas service in Manhattan, the Bronx, and parts of Queens and Westchester. Con Edison also owns and operates the world’s largest district steam system, providing steam service in most of Manhattan.

This year's five Regional ReliabilityOne awards recipients are:

• Northeast - Con Edison
• Mid-Atlantic - Public Service Electric & Gas Company
• Midwest - We Energies
• Plains - Kansas City Power & Light Company
• West - San Diego Gas & Electric

This year’s Overall Outstanding System-Wide Reliability Performance Winner was Con Edison. Con Edison’s average customer experienced outages of just 20 minutes for the entire year – this is 85% better than the industry average.

This year’s winner for Outstanding Response to a Major Outage Event is Public Service Electric & Gas Co. PSE&G’s response to the storm of March 13, 2010, categorized as the worst in the company’s history, was extremely well managed and effective, according to PA Consulting. Due to proficient planning and proactive communication, PSE&G’s restoration efforts were a success. The electric industry is facing significant investment needs associated with aging infrastructure coupled with rate pressures related to the current economic slowdown that are testing management’s skill and creativity, according to Jeff Lewis, PA Consulting Group’s ReliabilityOne Program Director.

“In the face of these challenges, these organizations have maintained the highest levels of reliability for their customers. Each ReliabilityOne award recipient has demonstrated outstanding performance in reliability and restoration and has created a strong organizational culture focused on reliability.”

Polaris ServiceOne Awards

PA Consulting Group also recognized those utilities that excel in the area of customer service and care with the presentation of the ServiceOne Awards.

This year’s recipient of the ServiceOne Award is Florida Power & Light. Florida Power & Light - an eight-time award winner - serves 4.5 million customers throughout Florida and is one of the largest rate-regulated utilities in the United States. This year's ServiceOne Balanced Scorecard Achievement Award recipients are:

• Contact Center - Florida Power & Light
• Field Service - Florida Power & Light
• Meter Reading - DTE Energy
• Meter Reading - Florida Power & Light
• Billing - Florida Power & Light
• Payment - Commonwealth Edison
• Credit & Collections - San Diego & Gas Electric
• Revenue Assurance - Xcel Energy

ServiceOne Awards recognize companies for providing exceptional service to their customers as determined by a set of 25 measures of excellence. ServiceOne Balanced Scorecard Achievement Awards recognize companies that provide outstanding performance within selected areas of Customer Service. While PA Consulting Group administers the Polaris ServiceOne program, an advisory committee consisting of members within the Polaris program provides advice regarding its content and criteria.

"Leading customer service organizations achieve success by empowering their employees to put their customer's needs at the front of everything they do," said Gregg Edeson, PA Consulting Group's ServiceOne Program Director. “The companies who have been named ServiceOne award winners for customer service have set the standard in the energy utilities industry by enabling staff with the information, tools and leadership necessary to foster a customer service-oriented culture.”