OEC Provides the Most Reliable Power in Central Oklahoma

OEC is our name. Reliability is our game.

As an OEC member, you already have a leg up over your investorowned utility neighbors. How? Recent data shows investor-owned utility customers were without power 140 percent longer than OEC members in 2019. 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 53.4 in 2019, meaning — across the board — our members were without power for an average of less than one hour in 2019, which is pretty remarkable.

OEC's score of 53.4 places us well below the average score of 121 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 42.3.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission reported investor-owned utility scores have a three-year average of 108 to 148 — 104-177 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 large role in reducing outage time." Proof that this focused effort is paying off can be found in the data. "Since 2016, we've been using analytics to stop outages before they occur,” said Shumaker. "We've used data to more efficiently organize our linemen and have reduced outages due to equipment failure by 60 percent. This is pretty incredible considering the number of lightning strikes in 2019 increased by 50 percent."

Strides will continue to be made in the upgrading of lightning protection equipment until all feeders on all substations are operating at a satisfactory level.

OTHER EFFORTS BEING MADE TO PROVIDE RELIABLE ELECTRICITY

Vegetation management plays a large role in providing safe, reliable electricity. Co-ops and electric companies in general sometimes get a bad rap for the role we play in the removal of trees, but our efforts help our system withstand Oklahoma's unpredictable weather. We're a fan of trees at OEC, just not intermingled with our electric lines. In fact, we encourage the safe planting of trees in a mindful location in conjunction with our infrastructure. Visit www.okcoop.org to download our free tree-planting guide. Be sure to also check next month's Co-op News for ways you can claim a free tree during the month of April!

All of our efforts culminate with one mission: to improve your quality of life with the safe delivery of highly reliable, reasonably priced electric service, innovative energy programs and exceptional member service.