Morganton wins two Public Power Awards of Excellence
Morganton is once again being recognized for its outstanding commitment to delivering reliable public power to its citizens. Morganton is one of 18 public power communities across North Carolina to receive a 2021 Public Power Award of Excellence.
The awards, presented by ElectriCities of North Carolina, recognize exceptional performance in the areas of communicating the value of public power, continuous improvement, grid modernization, wholesale power cost, and workforce planning and development.
Morganton received awards in the categories of Continuous Improvement and Grid Modernization.
“I’m proud of our employees’ commitment to providing safe, reliable, and affordable power to our community. This recognition is a testament to their unwavering dedication and the pride they take in doing exceptional work,” said Electric Services Director Brooks Kirby. “Being powered by a municipally owned electric system is a tremendous benefit to our city and to our customers. It enables us to deliver more reliable service than other providers, as well as local jobs and unmatched customer service.”
Morganton earned the Continuous Improvement award for its dedication to making steady improvements to our electric system each year to ensure our customers receive quality, affordable public power service. Some examples of this include a 10-year plan to replace buried underground wire throughout our system with new wire encased in PVC pipe to make it more reliable; installing more than 400 remote-read meters throughout our system; and installing reclosures throughout our system to ensure less customers lose power when outages happen.
Morganton won the Grid Modernization award for replacing regulator control panels throughout our system; installing reclosures and remote-read meters; replacing old substation breakers; and beginning construction on a new substation to replace a substation that is more than 100 years old.
“The commitment and dedication North Carolina’s public power providers demonstrate to their communities is always impressive,” said ElectriCities CEO Roy Jones. “I’m proud of these award winners for continuing to find ways to deliver better service and more value to the communities they serve while meeting the challenges of the past few years head-on.”
Nearly 1.3 million people in more than 70 cities and towns across North Carolina get their electricity from public power providers. Since these public power communities own their electric system, they maintain local control and decision making over their operations, providing unbeaten reliability and support for their local economy. Morganton is proud to be one of these communities.
