ROCHELLE — The Rochelle Municipal Utilities electric department was recently recognized by the American Public Power Association (APPA) for achieving exceptional electric reliability in 2023. 

The APPA is a trade group that represents more than 2,000 not-for-profit, community-owned electric utilities like RMU. 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 U.S. Energy Information Administration for all types of electric utilities.

RMU Superintendent of Electric Operations Blake Toliver said RMU was recognized due to being in the top 25 percent of reliable utilities in the nation. The City of Rochelle’s electric utility also achieved the same recognition last year and in 2020. 

“By law, we're required to log every outage we have to the federal government,” Toliver said. “At the end of every year, the APPA looks at everybody's outage statistics and we were recognized. That's comparing us against all utilities, not just municipal utilities. All utilities are allowed to throw out their largest outage so it's a fair comparison. But we don't throw that out. We leave all of our outages in. I'm very happy to see we made it into the top 25 percent despite leaving the largest outages in there.”

City Manager Jeff Fiegenschuh called the recognition “very important” especially among large utilities. He believes it shows the city’s utility is serving its purpose and recent reinvestment into electric infrastructure is working. He praised RMU’s staff for minimizing outages.  

Toliver said the award “means a lot” to his department. 

“It means the money we're reinvesting in our system is working and improving the reliability of our system,” Toliver said. “With being recognized two years in a row, we're seeing our reliability going up and our outage times going down. In a lot of our outage statistics, we're under 60 minutes for restoration, which is huge. We used to be at about 90 minutes and now we're under 60 in most cases. Recently we had a storm and we were all geared up for it. We didn't have a single outage. And it did get pretty windy and we had some heavy rains. The money that we're reinvesting is truly going to work.”

Toliver has worked for RMU’s electric department for 11 years. He recalls times where it couldn’t go a week without an outage, and now there are times where RMU makes it a month or two without one. 

“And back then outages would occasionally even happen on nice, sunny days,” Toliver said. 

“We're changing our construction practices, doing better with vegetation management, focusing on problem areas, and undergrounding lines. All of these little things that we're doing with the money we have are making a difference.”

Mayor John Bearrows said the APPA recognition speaks volumes about RMU’s staff and its dedication to keeping the lights on for customers and responding quickly to outages and fixing them. Fiegenschuh agreed.

“We talk about rates and providing the best service at the lowest cost, but at the end of the day what people really want is reliability,” Fiegenschuh said. “They want to flip the switch and have the lights turn on at their home or business. When you receive an award that recognizes our reliability and our efforts to reinvest in our system, that's the best award we can receive.”

In its system, RMU maintains 170 miles of overhead line, the most susceptible of infrastructure to nature, wildlife and accidents. 

“It takes a long time to make improvements to and maintenance all of that,” Toliver said. “It's trimming trees, putting wildlife protection up, and having current transformers. There's a lot of work that goes into making sure that this stuff is reliable equipment that's going to be there for the long haul for us. We focus on our problem areas to make them more reliable.”