RELIA [ri-lahy-uh-buhl]
adjective
that may be relied on or trusted; dependable in achievement, accuracy, honesty, etc.:
OEC is our name. Reliability is our game. As an OEC member, you already have a leg up over your investor-owned utility neighbors. How? Recent data shows investor-owned utility customers were without power 95 percent longer than OEC members in 2021. Reliability matters, and no one in central Oklahoma is doing it better than OEC. "In 2016, our members experienced an average outage time of 129 minutes for the entire year," said CEO Patrick Grace. "That number dropped to 65.1 in 2021, meaning — across the board — our members were without power for an average of one hour in 2021, which is pretty remarkable." OEC's score of 65.1 places us well below the average score among electric co-ops across the nation and takes into consideration the outage time due to our generation and transmission provider, Western Farmers Electric Cooperative. If we were to only look at the outage factors we can control, that number drops to 35.2. [3917210103] The Oklahoma Corporation Commission reported investor-
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Oklahoma Electric Co-op News • May 2022
owned utility scores have a three-year average of 102 to 140 — 56 to 115 percent higher than OEC's score. If you're keeping record at home, the lower the score the better. After all, the goal is to keep the lights on.
LIGHTNING'S SIGNIFICANT ROLE IN RELIABILITY Oklahoma is the second most lightning prone state behind Texas and it showed in our electrical system prior to 2017. This helped OEC's board of trustees create a 2017 strategic initiative to address and eradicate issues caused by lightning. "I believe our system hardening initiative continues to have a major impact on these scores," said Nick Shumaker, manager of system engineering. "We emphasized the much needed upgrading of our lightning protection equipment, which has played a
