PA Consulting Group announced the recipients of its annual ReliabilityOne and ServiceOne Awards at a reception in Washington D.C. before an audience of government dignitaries and industry executives. The ReliabilityOne awards are given annually to utilities that have excelled in delivering reliable electric service to their customers, while the ServiceOne awards are based on a set of criteria that covers nearly all the functional areas within customer service operations typical for a North American utility.

This year, the National Reliability Excellence Award went to Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G). PSE&G is a regulated utility delivering electric service to 2.1 million customers and gas service to 1.7 million customers throughout New Jersey. The utility also received the ReliabilityOne award for the Mid-Atlantic Region. The National Reliability Excellence Award is presented to the regional award recipient that has served as a consistent leader through demonstrated performance and a superior commitment to electric reliability.

Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. (Con Edison) received not only the ReliabilityOne Award for the Northeast Region, but also received the award for Outstanding System Wide Reliability. Con Edison excelled in providing superior outage frequency and duration performance on a system wide basis. Con Edison serves 3.2 million electric customers in New York City and Westchester.

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) received two PA awards: the ReliabilityOne Award for the Western Region and the award for Outstanding Response to a Major Outage Event for its extraordinary efforts supporting the community and restoring service to customer following the 2007 Southern California Wildfires. SDG&E is a Sempra Energy utility serving 3.4 million consumers in San Diego and southern Orange counties.

Kansas City Power & Light, a subsidiary of Great Plains Energy, Inc. and a leading regulated provider of electricity and energy-related products and services to more than 505,000 customers in Missouri and Kansas was the recipient of the ReliabilityOne Award for the Plains Region.

Indianapolis Power & Light, an AES Corporation utility which provides retail electric service to more than 465,000 customers in Indianapolis and other central Indiana communities, was the recipient of the ReliabilityOne Award for the Midwest Region.

Roseville Electric, based in Roseville, California, a suburb of Sacramento, was the recipient of the Community Utility ReliabilityOne Award. This award is given to a public utility that provides outstanding service to its community customers.

The ReliabilityOne award is given annually to utilities that have excelled in delivering reliable electric service to their customers. All utilities operating electric delivery networks in North America are eligible for consideration for the ReliabilityOne award. Selection of provisional recipients is based primarily on system reliability statistics that measure the frequency and duration of customer outages. After provisional recipients are selected, each company undergoes an on-site certification process, which provides an independent review of the policies, processes and systems used to collect, analyze and report a company's reliability results.

“We have a very strong group of award recipients from across the US. Each utility has distinguished itself through its commitment to delivering outstanding reliability to customers and the overall 2007 performance is the most impressive I’ve seen since the program’s inception,” said Jeff Lewis, PA’s ReliabilityOne Program Director. “These utilities have answered call of maintaining superior levels of reliability and service amid the ever-increasing and diverse energy demands of their customers. We congratulate each award recipient for demonstrating the best performance in the industry.”

PA also recognized those utilities that excel in the area of customer service and care with the presentation of the ServiceOne awards. The 2008 ServiceOne award recipients were:
• Florida Power & Light, which serves 4.4 million customers throughout Florida
• NorthWestern Energy, an electricity and natural gas utility that serves customers in Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska

Florida Power & Light and NorthWestern are both five time ServiceOne award winners.

In addition to the overall ServiceOne award recipients, this year marked the first where awards were given to utilities that excelled in functional areas within customer service for a typical North American utility. The inaugural Balanced Scorecard Achievement Award recipients are:
• Entergy – Field Service
• Dominion -- Billing
• PPL -- Meter Reading
• Florida Power & Light – Contact Center
• First Energy – Payment
• NorthWestern Energy – Credit & Collections
• PSE&G – Revenue Protection

“In an environment in which companies serve a customer base with ever-increasing and diverse energy demands, this year’s ServiceOne award recipients have demonstrated the ability to provide superior service that has set the standard for the industry,” said Mike Hormell, PA’s ServiceOne Program Director.

ServiceOne awards recognize companies for providing exceptional service to their customers as determined by a set of 25 objective measures of excellence in customer care, identified by a panel of industry experts. Participating Polaris companies must achieve top quartile on the ServiceOne scorecard to be considered for the ServiceOne award.