HASTINGS, Neb. – The Hastings Utilities Department is receiving national recognition for achieving exceptional electric reliability in 2023.

The recognition comes from the American Public Power Association (APPA), a trade group that represents more than 2,000 not-for-profit, community-owned electric utilities.

According to APPA, Hastings Utilities is in the top 25% of utilities for System Average Interruption Duration Index based on the EIA data in 2018 – 2022, thereby qualifying for the 2023 Certificate of Excellence in Reliability.

Award recipients were notified of their designation on Tuesday, April 9.

Kevin Johnson, Manager of Utilities for the City of Hastings, thanked utility staff for their leadership and dedication, which ensures reliability for customers as well as recognition from the APPA.

“The SAIDI metric speaks directly to our staff response time to customer outage, meaning our folks take pride in their respective responsibilities after hours and during work hours to respond to outages,” Johnson said.

APPA helps electric utilities track power outage and restoration data through its subscription-based eReliability Tracker service. Once per year, APPA’s Reliability Team compares this data to national statistics tracked by the EIA for all types of electric utilities.

Nationwide, the average public power customer has their lights out for less than half the amount of time that customers of other types of utilities do.