Public Power - May 2008 - (Page 42)

RELIABILITY RP3 Stars By William Atkinson As a way demonstratepower for public utilities to they are reliable, safe, developing their work forces and making system improvements, APPA in 2005 developed the Reliable Public Power Provider (RP3) program. To receive the RP3 designation, a public power utility must apply and meet at least 80 percent of the program criteria. Participating utilities may be recognized as gold—meeting 80 percent of the criteria, platinum—being 90 percent compliant, or Diamond— meeting all of the criteria. All three designations are valid for a two-year period, with an option to reapply. As of 2007, 112 utilities had received the RP3 program designation. These utilities are recognized in the RP 3 Best Practices Guidebook. The nine-chapter book shares success stories and strategies of RP3 utilities. “For the case studies, we looked at some of the utilities that scored well in certain areas, and pulled some of the ideas from their programs,” said Nathan Mitchell, APPA’s director of engineering and operations. Overall, the goal of RP 3 is not to get utilities to compare themselves with other utilities. Rather, it is to get them to make improvements over time, said Mitchell. “It is important for utilities to remember that reliability is a constant cycle,” he said. “Each time there is an outage, you have to document what happened and how long it took to get the power back on.” The next step is to evaluate the information—looking at your system on a year-by-year basis and examining the trends. For example, are there more outages because of tree issues? If so, the answer is to put more money into tree trimming. “If more outages are related to a specific piece of equipment, the solution is to focus on that piece of equipment,” he said. Lakeland Electric in Florida learned about RP 3 when Betsy Levingston was asked to serve on APPA’s RP3 committee as the HR training chair for the business and finance committee. Levingston is Lakeland’s assistant general manager, general services. The first step for Lakeland in attaining RP3 status was to streamline the creation and management of internal records. “The experience of gathering our records helped us realize that we would need to track things differently than we had been doing in the past, so it would be easier for reporting,” she said. As a result, the utility came to better understand the potential value of the information itself. For example, the utility found that its training records tended to focus largely on the number of hours employees were involved in training. “We didn’t have a lot of data on whether the information they were learning was helping to keep them prepared in order to provide reliable power to the community,” she said. The process of applying for RP 3 helped Lakeland move in a proactive direction. “Overall, the process of applying for RP 3 helped us understand the actual value of the activities we are engaged in and helped make the most of the activities,” she said. Although Lakeland has always been committed to training and keeping employees up to date with best practices, since applying for RP3 designation, training has become more nuanced. Lakeland focuses more on how employees can be prepared as a result of the training. More attention has also been given to work force planning and development. For instance, capital budget projects now include training to help participants understand the process better, said Levingston. “This has helped us realize where we need to devote resources to make ourselves better,” she said. The RP 3 guidebook examines Lakeland’s efforts in three case studies: Conference and Workshop Attendance; Continuing Education; and Committee or Organization Participation and Membership. Rochester Public Utilities 42 MAY 2008 PUBLIC POWER http://www.procoresolutions.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Public Power - May 2008

Public Power - May 2008 Contents Perspective LEEDing the Way Ontario Moves to Mandatory Time-of-Use Pricing Journey to the Smart Grid Right-Sizing Transformers Energy Audits for Large Industries Economic Development Community Broadband Reliability Hometown Connections Parting Shot

Public Power - May 2008

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