Electric Division Wins National Awards

Date: 04/25/2008
Number of Views: 140

The American Public Power Association (APPA), representing more than 2,000 municipal electric providers throughout the United States, recently awarded the Westerville Electric Division with the Reliable Public Power Provider (RP3) designation for 2008-2009.

APPA’s RP3 program encourages public power systems to demonstrate basic proficiency in four important disciplines: reliability, safety, training and system improvement. The program was introduced in 2006.  That year, the Westerville Electric Division was among the first 65 of 2,000 municipal electric systems in the entire United States (and one of ten in Ohio) to be awarded the certification.  Utilities must re-apply for this designation every two years.

In addition to Westerville’s RP3 designation, the Westerville Electric Division also received the designation of Honorable Mention in the 2007 APPA Safety Contest.  Westerville had just one reportable accident, which was minor in nature, for 79,973 hours of exposure, resulting in the lowest incidence rate in ten years for the Westerville Electric Division.  This marks the first time in twenty years that the electric division has received safety recognition from APPA.

“Winning a safety award from APPA is special because the competing utilities either have a higher number of worker hours or no reportable incidents for the year. Most of our reportable incidents have been muscular-skeletal injuries which has kept us out of the running for national recognition. In recent years, we have instituted an internal safety team, annual health fairs, and additional occupational health and safety training which have all contributed to making staff more conscientious about safety,” said Andrew Boatright.  “The Reliable Public Power Provider designation means a lot to our division because it shows our commitment to being a reliable, safe, and prudent energy partner,.  “Westerville consistently re-invests in its electric infrastructure throughout it service area, and this award is a reflection of that commitment.  Receiving these two awards at once shows that we’re on the right track as a division with regard to our external customers and training for our internal staff.”

Westerville received these awards in April at APPA’s Engineering and Operations Technical Conference at Indianapolis, Indiana.