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Awards of Excellence

Public Power
Awards of Excellence

Each year, ElectriCities honors the communities whose efforts stand out with Public Power Awards of Excellence. The submission window for this year’s Public Power Awards of Excellence is open until April 20, 2026.

The Public Power Awards of Excellence reflect the five Strategic Priorities that support Public Power’s Strategic Plan. Submissions should show your progress against these strategic priorities and demonstrate your utility’s adoption of the Vision for public power.

Future-focused – Develop a future-focused mindset
Strengthen public power – Build public and political support for public power
Provide superior power – Deliver reliable, affordable, and sustainable electric power
Customer-centered innovation – Innovate and invest to better serve our customers and communities
People – Leverage our people as our greatest asset

General award criteria that apply to all award categories:

- Awards are open to all ElectriCities member communities in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
- Members are welcome, but not required, to apply for awards in all five categories. Details on the criteria for each award category are below.
- The service/program/system/initiative/campaign/etc. featured in your submission(s) must be live or must have been initiated within the time frame of the award (February 2025-present). Existing projects or programs being maintained as is do not qualify.
- Submissions must summarize how your utility’s efforts help achieve public power’s Vision and Purpose as part of our Strategic Plan.
- Applications will be reviewed as submitted. Please carefully read all criteria and include any supporting documents required prior to submitting.
- Your utility’s size will be considered when submissions are evaluated. Members will not be evaluated against one another.

2025 Public Power Awards of Excellence

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Future-focused

Demonstrate that your electric utility has a plan for the future, and that it is actively implementing that plan to maintain future competitiveness.

This category is focused on initiatives your utility or community is undertaking to improve its future competitiveness, meet customer expectations, and keep up with industry trends. Supporting evidence of such initiatives should include a demonstration of current efforts and long-term objectives that occur several years in the future. Utilities will also need to demonstrate year-over-year progress in advancing their plans. Evidence of new accomplishments each year is required to demonstrate progress. Please do not resubmit the same proposal from a prior year.

Either of the following can be accepted as evidence of such action (while you are welcome to submit an initiative under each, only one is required):
1.Implementation of a long-term strategic plan for your electric utility. <strong>Engineering studies or capital spending plans do not satisfy this requirement</strong>. Describe in detail the effort, including the process, involvement of key stakeholders, program deliverables, and approval/adoption process. Provide high-level deliverables of the process, such as vision, mission, purpose, values, and/or core strategies.
Additional criteria:
- • The submission must demonstrate that the electric utility is actively following the plan that was developed, and that the organization is measuring its success against the goals of the plan and making adjustments, as needed, for future work.
2. Implementation of a data-driven approach toward improving the competitiveness of your electric utility. Demonstrate that you have used market research or industry data to identify a long-term objective of improving the value that your utility provides to its customers. Improved value must be documented and validated. Provide summary data and evidence that support your conclusions for the effort, along with your action plan for achieving those objectives. Additional weight will be given to your proposal if it includes competitive analyses involving other regional utilities on new customer offerings. Discuss the actions that your utility has taken to achieve this objective during the timeframe of the award evaluation period.
Additional criteria:
- • Must have documented outcomes of the effort, as described above. Attach supporting documents and analyses below.
- • The submission must demonstrate that the electric utility is actively following the plan that was developed, and that the organization is measuring its success against the goals of the plan and making adjustments, as needed, for future work.
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Strengthen Public Power

Demonstrate a successful program, campaign, or initiative that educates and communicates the value of public power to your customers, community, and/or elected officials while raising awareness for the public power model.

Any of the following can be accepted as evidence of such action (while you are welcome to submit an initiative under each, only one is required):
1. A communications or awareness program, campaign, or initiative aimed at your customers. Describe in detail the program including the planning, execution, and evaluation process. What led you to initiate the program? What goals did the program hope to achieve? What internal staffing resources were required to carry out the program? What customer learnings did you gain from the program?

This category is focused on initiatives your utility or community is undertaking to strengthen your public power education and awareness efforts for your customers. This could include an advertising campaign, new communication channel or offering for your customers, or new awareness event your utility hosted. Submissions must include documented goals for the program and metrics against those goals.
2. A communications or awareness program, campaign, or initiative directed at local elected officials including city/town councils, mayors, etc. Describe how your utility/community is communicating with local elected officials in a new or expanded way to educate on, raise awareness of, and advocate for public power. Provide details on the planning, outreach, audience, and outcomes of your local elected official engagement efforts.

This category is focused on initiatives your utility or community is undertaking to strengthen your public power education and advocacy efforts with the local elected official audience. This could include educational seminars or ambassador programs for local elected officials, a new advocacy campaign, or local grassroots events. Submissions must include documented goals for the program and metrics against those goals.
3. A communications or awareness program, campaign, or initiative directed at state or federal elected officials including members of the North Carolina General Assembly and federal legislators. Describe how your utility/community is communicating with this audience in a new or expanded way to educate on, raise awareness, and advocate for public power. Provide details on the planning, outreach, audience, and outcomes of your elected official engagement efforts.

This category is focused on initiatives your utility or community is undertaking to strengthen your public power education and advocacy efforts with state and/or federal decision-makers. This could include setting up meetings with your state or federal legislators, tours/site visits/ribbon-cutting events for state and federal lawmakers, or other relationship-building events. Submissions must include documented goals for the program and metrics against those goals.
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Provide Superior Power

Demonstrate that your electric utility provides reliable and affordable electric power to your customers, incorporating sustainable generation resources and environmentally friendly fuel supply practices. Submissions should include how your utility is maintaining leadership in providing reliable electric services and what efforts your utility is taking to maintain affordable rates, practice fiscal responsibility, and develop long-term plans to capitalize on growth opportunities. What does it mean to provide superior power? As a utility, you hold the power to maintain affordability by making investments to reduce the demand component of your wholesale power costs and by controlling the cost of operating your electric distribution system. Being locally owned, you know your customers best and can provide programs your customers want. Knowing your local community also puts you in the best position to plan for and implement long-term strategic investments with flexibility to meet the future needs of your community while maintaining reliability and affordability. A strong culture of safety and active caring is a foundational element of providing superior power. When safety is compromised, the consequences extend far beyond the workplace—affecting employees, their families, coworkers, and the broader community. Protecting our people is inseparable from delivering reliable, affordable, and sustainable electric service.

Please respond to all six questions for award consideration.
1. What new or additional efforts have you implemented in recent years to improve safety practices or build a safety-conscious culture?*

Examples could include adoption of the latest APPA Safety Manual; conducting new or additional safety and PPE audits; standardizing pre-job briefing processes; implementing tools such as QR codes on employee badges to verify qualifications for higher risk work; performing peer reviews with other City or Town departments; establishing tracking and corrective action processes for safety events and near misses; and applying root cause or “five why” analyses to identify and address contributing factors
Please provide supporting materials to demonstrate and measure the success of efforts to enhance safety practices and safety culture. Multiyear initiatives may be considered but a definitive timeline should be submitted.
2. What sort of energy reduction efforts have you implemented over the past year?*

These can be supply-side energy efficiency programs like managing your distribution losses by doing conductor or transformer upgrades, voltage reduction, capacitor installations, or other examples where you are managing your distribution system efficiently. It can also be demand-side energy efficiency initiatives like LED street and area light projects, customer audits, or appliance rebates. Please provide supporting materials to demonstrate and measure the success of these projects. Include your % energy losses. Multiyear projects may be considered but a definitive timeline should be submitted.
3. Are you participating in demand-side management efforts and offering demand response programs?*

Whether these efforts are utility owned or behind the customer meter, both provide opportunities to reduce costs for customers and improve their satisfaction. This can be achieved through providing a rebate to the customer for having a load management switch or by a “bring your own device” or thermostat program that allows the utility to control during peak management times. It could also be managed through a rate design like time-of-use or a coincident or critical peak rate which can also encourage charging behaviors of electric vehicles.

Please provide supporting materials to demonstrate and measure the success of these projects. Include the date the program or retail rate was approved by council. Multiyear projects may be considered, but a definitive timeline should be submitted.
4. What new or additional initiatives have you taken on over the past year to maintain staff and customer awareness of the cost and low-carbon footprint of your power supply, including the potential beneficial opportunities for distributed energy resources such as solar PV, battery storage, and electrification?*

Long-term resource and financial planning helps prepare utilities for changes in the energy industry and technology. Resources like solar and battery storage are continuing to mature and utilities should determine how new cleaner resources could affect your overall wholesale power cost and where these resources are likely to show up on your system. Behind-the-meter programs can work in sync with your overall wholesale power supply mix. Have you established a sustainability plan or program to communicate with your customers? Does your long-term strategic plan include the effects of electrification and what impact it could have on your wholesale power cost? Is your staff educated on your power supply mix and what it means to your customers and rating agencies? Please provide supporting materials to demonstrate and measure the success of these projects. Include the date distributed energy resource interconnection standards and policies were approved by council. Multiyear projects may be considered, but a definitive timeline should be submitted.
5. What new or additional actions have you implemented over the past year to improve the reliability, resiliency, and customer service performance of your electric system?*

Describe how these efforts have strengthened system reliability and resilience, improved customer experience, or reduced outage duration and frequency.
Please provide supporting materials for your reliability initiatives to demonstrate performance outcomes, including your most recent SAIDI and SAIFI metrics.
6. What actions have you taken over the past year to ensure the long-term financial stability of your electric utility and maintain a healthy electric enterprise fund?*

Please describe how your utility monitors and manages its cost to serve customers. Examples could include completing annual financial projections, conducting a cost‑of‑service study within the last three years, planning for new residential, commercial, or industrial development, or assessing potential future rate design improvements.
APPA’s RP3 and SEP program applications may have areas that are applicable to utility best practice successes that would also make you eligible for this award. Providing Superior Power is not only about providing the most reliable and affordable electricity, but the best value for the electricity the customer is receiving.
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People

Demonstrate that your electric utility is taking active steps to develop, attract, and retain current and future public power talent. Actions demonstrating this should be specific to the electric utility or be modified to highlight the unique needs of your utility as opposed to being a citywide initiative (i.e., simply being included as part of a citywide compliance training program). Examples should reflect something newly implemented, revised, or enhanced over the past year as opposed to being an ongoing practice that is being maintained. For existing initiatives that have been revised or enhanced, please provide specific details as to how the initiative has changed over the evaluation period.

While not exhaustive, the examples below illustrate actions or programs that may be accepted as evidence of such efforts. Although you may submit an initiative under each category, only one is required. We encourage you to think broadly and consider any new programs or actions that positively impact your employees and/or organizational culture, even if they are not specifically listed below.
1. Implemented, revised, or enhanced a process or practice to benchmark your utility compensation against the broader competitive labor market. The competitive labor market is the market or organizations from which you are hiring talent or losing talent (investor-owned utilities, electric cooperatives, contractors, and other public power utilities).
Additional criteria:
- • Example must include efforts to benchmark compensation beyond other public power communities in our region to increase awareness of the broader competitive market among key decision makers.
- • The response must include details about how your utility went about benchmarking the positions (partnered with a consultant, in-house project, etc.), how key decision-makers were educated or informed of the results, and the outcomes of these discussions.
- • The response must summarize how you plan to maintain these practices to keep pace with market.
2. Implemented a program or campaign focused specifically on career progression or skill development (beyond required compliance or OSHA training). This can include examples such as developing career pathways, implementing leadership training programs, behavioral skills training (conflict management, critical thinking), etc.
Additional criteria:
- • The program must be specific to or customized to address the unique needs of the electric utility as opposed to being a general organization-wide effort.
- • The program must be an ongoing effort to encourage career progression and skill development as opposed to a one-time class or event.
3. Developed a succession plan for your utility roles, with a specific focus on key leadership positions.
Additional criteria:
- • The response must outline how the plan was developed, who in your utility was involved in the process, which roles are included in the succession plan, and how they were decided.
- • The response should outline examples of specific steps the plan includes to ensure successors are prepared to move into key roles when needed.
- • The response should outline how the succession plan will be monitored and maintained, and what position in your organization is accountable for it.
4. Implemented a program or campaign to expose youth or active job seekers to careers within your utility or public power.
Additional criteria:
5. Implemented a program or campaign to increase a sense of belonging and inclusiveness within regional public power. This could include education or talent attraction campaigns designed to reach females, people of color, veterans or other underrepresented groups. This could also include programs or campaigns to promote a culture of belonging and inclusion within your utility.
Additional criteria:
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1. Have you implementation of a data-driven approach toward improving the competitiveness of your electric utility? Demonstrate that you have used market research or industry data to identify a long-term objective of improving the value that your utility provides to its customers. Provide summary data and evidence that support your conclusions for the effort, along with your action plan for achieving those objectives. Discuss the actions that your utility has taken to achieve this objective during the timeframe of the award evaluation period.

• Must have documented outcomes of the effort, as described above. Attach supporting documents below.
• The submission must demonstrate that the electric utility is actively following the plan that was developed, and that the organization is measuring its success against the goals of the plan and making adjustments, as needed, for future work.
Customer-centered Innovation

Demonstrate a successful system or program implementation or upgrade that delivers added customer value and benefit.

Either of the following can be accepted as evidence of such action (while you are welcome to submit an initiative under each, only one is required):
1. A successful system implementation or significant upgrade which has demonstrated an improved customer experience with your electric utility. Why was this system selected and how did you ensure you met the customers’ needs?
Additional criteria:
- • Submissions should describe a new or significant upgrade to a system that delivers added customer value. The system must be live within the timeframe of the award.
- • Must have documented customer input and/or feedback for system selection, design, and configuration. Attach supporting documents below.
- • System must have enhanced utility functionality in a way that can demonstrate an enhancement in the customer experience through added customer functionality, ease of use, or access to more information.
- • Include measurement of customer impact. For example, show enhancements based on a customer focus group or survey data or documented process improvement for customer experience.
2. A customer program implementation or redesign that delivers added customer value and benefit and has documented success.
Additional criteria:
- • Submissions should describe a new or significant upgrade to a customer program that delivers added customer value. The program must have launched during the timeframe of the award.
- • Must include documented customer input and/or feedback during program prioritization, selection, design, and configuration. Attach supporting documents below.
- • Include measurement of customer impact. For example, include participation rates in line with industry benchmarks, customer focus group, or survey data.
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2025 Public Power Awards of Excellence

Future-focused

Strengthen Public Power

Provide Superior Power

People

Customer-centered Innovation

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