SAN DIEGO–Last week, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) was awarded the 2015 ReliabilityOne Award for Outstanding Reliability Performance among utilities in the western states and Canada for the 10th straight year by PA Consulting Group.
ReliabilityOne Awards are given annually to the utilities that have excelled in delivering the most reliable electric service to their customers.
“This award is such a tremendous honor, and highlights the fact that we are continuously improving to serve you better tomorrow than we are today,” said David L. Geier, vice president of electric transmission and system engineering for SDG&E. “Whether it’s developing or leveraging new innovative technologies, our goal is to reduce the number and length of outages, so that when you flip your switch at home, the lights will always turn on.”
Some of SDG&E’s most innovative reliability enhancements include:
- Integrating many forms of renewable energy, including rooftop solar. SDG&E is developing a dynamic, innovative and resilient grid that can enable the sustainable growth of renewable energy and other technologies as our customers chose to adopt them, and as they become competitive, viable options. To date, SDG&E has helped connect more than 68,000 solar rooftop systems, adding nearly 70 per day. The company was the first utility in California to generate 33 percent of its electricity from renewable resources.
- Utilizing smart grid technology that provides real-time information about outages and dispatches crews to the location to quickly correct problems.
- By creating a more automated electric grid, SDG&E has been able to reduce the number of customers impacted by power outages by more than a third over the past decade. In many cases, the grid is able to use real-time information to “heal” itself remotely or sense problems before they occur.
- Testing Unmanned Aircraft Systems to patrol and inspect electric facilities when outages occur. By leveraging this new technology, SDG&E will be able to safely inspect power lines in environments that are off-limits to helicopters or difficult to access by road or other means.
- Since 2007, replaced approximately 5,700 wooden transmission and distribution poles with steel poles in areas where wildfire risk is highest.
“The ReliabilityOne Awards have helped bring recognition to those utilities that have maintained the highest level of reliability, brought outstanding innovation to their operations and place the highest value on their customers,” said Jeff Lewis, PA Consulting Group’s ReliabilityOne™ program director.
SDG&E was also recognized for Outstanding Response to a Major Outage Event for its efforts during the May 2014 wildfires. By working closely with local agencies to ensure utility crews and firefighters were mobilized and prepared in advance, SDG&E was able to ultimately minimize outage response times.
SDG&E is a regulated public utility that provides safe and reliable energy service to 3.4 million consumers through 1.4 million electric meters and 868,000 natural gas meters in San Diego and southern Orange counties. The utility’s area spans 4,100 square miles.
