A new report by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows that municipal utility providers offer better results than their corporate competitors.
Power plants owned and operated by city governments experienced on average one outage in 2015, usually lasting up to two hours, according to the study.
Those performance indicators outpaced other utility types in 2015.
Investor-owned energy producers averaged more than one outage a year. They typically lasted beyond three hours. Cooperatively owned utilities fared the worst, averaging more than two outages a year that lasted nearly five hours.
Although the EIA data covered only 28 percent of all utility providers in the country, the plants surveyed were responsible for 72 percent of all electric sales in 2015.
The agency did offer an explanation for the lagging performance of co-op utilities. It noted that co-ops are “generally suppliers to rural homes with more powerline miles and trees per customer, increasing the likelihood that distribution lines will be affected by storms.”
Conversely, municipal utilities and investor-owned services often exist within bustling cities that have fewer powerlines, and they usually employ underground connections, which hold up better during weather events.
The report was released on Monday.
