Dominion Virginia Power Records Best-Ever Reliability
Rate For Fifth Consecutive Year
RICHMOND, Va. – Dominion Virginia Power’s 2 million electricity
customers experienced record service reliability in 2001 -- marking the fifth
consecutive year of improvement.
On average, Dominion Virginia Power customers had a constant
flow of electricity throughout the year with the exception of 105 minutes, excluding
major storms. In 2000, the average number of minutes out was 118.
Average Number of Minutes Out
(Excluding Major Storms)
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
133
128
121
118
105
The average percentage of time that service was available
in 2001 was 99.98 percent.
“Our 11 percent improvement and success last year was a combination
of the work of great employees and relatively good weather,” said Edgar M. Roach
Jr., president and chief executive officer. “Thankfully, there were no catastrophic
weather events to disrupt our distribution system and our employees continued
their excellent job of focusing on electric service reliability.”
Power outages occur for a number of reasons -- severe weather,
trees falling onto power lines, dig-ins cutting underground cables, equipment
failure, vehicle accidents or vandalism.
Including major storms in 2001, the average number of minutes
a Dominion Virginia Power customer was without electricity was 138 minutes.
This was down significantly from the 324 minutes the previous year, which included
a massive freezing-rain storm over a large section of the service area in late
January.
When Dominion Virginia Power line crews are not responding
to immediate outage problems, the company focuses on improving the quality of
service through its maintenance program.
Dominion Virginia Power’s priority in 2001 was to improve
the electric service reliability of customers who experienced repeat interruptions
in their electric service of longer than two minutes. The company implemented
improvement plans, including tree trimming, equipment reconfiguration and underground
cable replacement.
“As a result of these efforts in 2001, 90 percent
of our 2 million electric customers experienced three or fewer outages,” Roach
said.
In addition, the company targeted customers who experienced
more than 10 power outages during the year, reducing that number by 77 percent,
from 4,653 customers in 2000 to 1,076 customers in 2001.
Dominion Virginia Power is the electric delivery company
of Dominion, one of the nation’s largest producers of energy, with a production
capability of more than 3 trillion British thermal unit of energy per day. Dominion
serves nearly 4 million retail natural gas and electric customers in five states.
For more information about Dominion, visit the company’s Web site at www.dom.com.
