Report Shows Omaha Public Power District is Maintaining High Levels of Reliability

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
April 21, 2023

An annual monitoring report recently shared with the Board of Directors of Omaha Public Power District shows that OPPD earned high marks for minimizing the number of service disruptions its customers experience.

Troy Via, OPPD’s COO and Vice President of Utility Operations, presented details on the monitoring report on April 18.

The Nebraska public power utility tracks power outage frequency and the latest data puts it in the top quartile compared with similar-sized utilities.

OPPD also ranks in the top quartile for outage duration. The utility has continued to reduce the amount of time customers are without power for the past five years to half of what it was in 2018.

Via said steadily increasing tree-trimming budgets have made a big impact in reducing both outage frequency and duration. OPPD’s Forestry Department works with new neighborhood and business developments, as well as residential customers, providing education on planting the “right tree in the right place” in order to avoid interference with power lines.

In addition, he said, underground cable replacements and “critter guards” to help prevent animal interference, have helped.

Interim Generation Needs

During the board committee meetings, OPPD leaders also shared information about near-term power generation needs within the utility’s service territory, which is experiencing unprecedented growth across all customer classes.

OPPD must maintain enough accredited power generation to cover what is needed within its service territory at peak usage, plus 15% more load to meet regulatory requirements. This not only maintains local reliability, but also reliability of the larger grid, the utility noted.

The district’s Power with Purpose project will provide critical accredited capacity and electricity to support reliability and resiliency and provide generation diversity for customers. This power is expected to meet the district’s immediate needs.

However, more load growth is projected. OPPD identified the need for additional generation within its Pathways to Decarbonization study and as a part of ongoing resource planning work.

OPPD is analyzing several resource options to power this growing load, and leaders told board members they are confident the utility can meet the challenge.

Solutions must be feasible to engineer, procure, construct and interconnect to the regional electric system in the time frame needed to reliably serve customers, the utility noted.