Mich. Public Power Utility Grand Haven Board of Light & Power Details Strong Reliability Performance

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
March 24, 2023

Michigan public power utility Grand Haven Board of Light & Power is performing significantly better than both state and national averages across a range of reliability areas.

On March 16, the utility presented the 2022 distribution system reliability indices during a Board of Directors meeting.

The Distribution Reliability Report provides insight into many areas of utility operations, including outage tracking, restoration, and overall system reliability. In all areas the Grand Haven Board of Light & Power is performing significantly better than both state and national averages. 

“The BLP has, over the past seven years, invested a considerable amount of money in both our transmission and distribution systems including improving our vegetation management program. The annual reports let us know the return on these improvements for the benefit our customers,” said Board Chairman Mike Westbrook.

Robert Shelley, distribution and engineering manager at the utility, updated the Board on the status of the electrical system’s overall health and reliability. Shelley informed the Board of Directors that electric utilities use three common statistics in measuring distribution system reliability: System Average Interruption Duration Index, System Average Interruption Frequency Index and Customer Average Interruption Duration Index.

SAIDI represents the total length of time an average customer experiences a non-momentary power interruption during the year. For SAIDI, the BLP’s system average outage duration is 2.75 hours, which is below the national average of 7.93 hours and also significantly less than the state average of 14.85 hours.

SAIFI measures the frequency of interruptions. The BLP’s reported frequency of interruption index of 1.38 is lower than the national average of 1.44 and also lower than the state average of 1.65.

CAIDI represents the average restoration time to restore electrical service to the average customer. The BLP’s reported restoration time of 1.99 hours is much less than the national average of 5.52 hours and also significantly less than the state average of 9.01 hours.

Shelley told the Board that it has taken careful planning and engineering to help us achieve these results, but it is also a direct reflection on the dedicated employees of the utility.

Shelley also reported that BLP customers experienced no significant outages during February’s ice storm that blew through Michigan knocking trees and limbs down and cutting power to 700,000 homes and business in other service territories.

The Grand Haven Board of Light and Power serves approximately 15,000 customers in the City of Grand Haven, City of Ferrysburg, Grand Haven, Spring Lake and Robinson Townships.