Edison Award
The Edison Award is presented annually, usually to one U.S. and one international electric company, selected from members of the Edison Electric Institute (EEI). It is EEI's most prestigious award and has been presented since 1922.
Purpose
- The Edison Award honors “distinguished leadership, innovation and contribution to the advancement of the electric industry for the benefit of all.”
Nominations
- Any EEI member company, U.S. or international affiliate, may nominate itself or any other member. Nominations for the 2010 Edison Award (recognizing accomplishments achieved primarily in 2009) are due to EEI by February 1, 2010.
Each entry must include the following:
- Nomination Form
(Signed or approved by a CEO)
- A description of the achievement, no more than three pages.
Selection and Judging
A review committee comprised of editors from electric industry trade publications (appointed by EEI's president) will select finalists from each membership category.
EEI will then invite these finalists to submit presentations that will be reviewed by a judging panel. The panel, consisting of the current chairman of EEI and retired industry senior executives, will determine the winners.
Criteria
The evaluation of nominees is relative and is based on leadership, innovation, advancement, and overall contribution to the electric power industry. The specific achievements for which a company is nominated should be substantially completed during the preceding calendar year.
These accomplishments may include (but need not be limited to) any or all of the following areas: engineering, construction, operations, communications, customer service, environment, finances, and strategy.
Award Presentation
- The Edison Award is announced and presented at EEI's Annual Convention in June.
EEI Staff Contacts
Edison Award Recipients
2009
- American Transmission Company (ATC)
ATC owns, operates, builds and maintains the high-voltage electric transmission system serving portions of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois. ATC in 2008 completed the Arrowhead-Weston transmission line, a 345-kilovolt, 220-mile-long line between Wausau, Wis. and Duluth, Minn. that has significantly improved northern Wisconsin’s reliability while easing constraints on the region’s other major transmission line, the Eau Claire-Arpin line. The new transmission line allows for the movement of larger volumes of lower-cost electricity to utilities and customers. This has led to savings of $5.1 million by electric customers after its first year in service, and the power it brings into the region helps control price spikes. Due to the high efficiency of the new line, the company estimates a savings of 35 megawatts of on-peak usage on neighboring utility systems and that, over a 40-year life span, 5.7 million megawatt hours of electricity will be saved and 5.3 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions will be prevented.
- Northeast Utilities (NU)
NU operates New England’s largest energy delivery system and serves more than 2 million electricity and natural gas customers. Northeast Utilities in 2008 completed a major, multi-year electric transmission upgrade in southwest Connecticut, an area previously considered by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as one of the nation’s most severely congested. The upgrade consisted of four transmission line projects – Bethel-Norwalk, Glenbrook Cables, Long Island Replacement Cable and Middletown-Norwalk – with Bethel-Norwalk completed and energized in 2006 and the rest completed and energized in 2008. Overall, the four projects were finished ahead of schedule and under budget by $80 million. Since completion, the Bethel-Norwalk project already has generated more than $150 million in congestion-related savings. The Middletown-Norwalk line includes the world’s longest 345-kV buried, solid-core cable at 24 miles, and the Long Island Replacement Cable project includes 11 miles of cable buried six feet under the sea bed.
- Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE)
CFE provides generation, transmission and distribution of electrical power to 26.6 million customers - nearly 80 million people. When a landslide in November 2007 completely blocked the course of the Grijalva River in Southeast Mexico, rising waters put the population downstream in grave danger and threatened to damage CFE’s Peñitas hydroelectric power plant. CFE, aided by a crisis management team of scientists and engineers, rapidly built a channel to re-connect the river around the natural dam caused by the landslide.
2008
- Arizona Public Service Company (APS)
APS, the operating utility subsidiary of Pinnacle West Capital Corporation, serves over 1 million customers throughout Arizona. APS developed a first-of-its-kind tool for near-real-time monitoring of major transformers serving the company’s customers. The online Transformer Oil Analysis and Notification (TOAN) system has enabled the company to automatically determine the “health” of transformers by evaluating dissolved gasses inside transformers, thereby improving system reliability, enhancing productivity and preventing catastrophic failure. The patent-pending monitoring and artificial intelligence analysis/notification system doubled the accuracy of existing methods while eliminating time-consuming and repetitive manual efforts.
- Iberdrola, S.A.
Iberdrola recently developed and implemented a research and development management system to oversee all of the company’s R&D initiatives, resources, and projects. Designed to generate constant improvements in process efficiency and to apply resources to evolving external needs, the system has promoted a culture of innovation within the company while strengthening Iberdrola’s commitment to sustainable development. In 2007, the system enabled systematic and uniform criteria to be applied to more than 140 research and development projects with an annual budget of more than $100 million.
- North Delhi Power, Limited (NDPL)
NDPL, a company of the Tata Group, based in India, was formed in 2002 to serve as a distribution utility in North Delhi by taking over a part of the former State Electricity Board of Delhi. The company has innovatively deployed a new geographical information system (GIS), integrating it with other applications for operational, commercial and asset-management activities. The GIS was integrated with NDPL’s customer relations and billing systems to aid in recovery of outstanding customer bills, expedite requests for new connections and to reduce theft. It also was integrated with the company’s enterprise resource system to improve asset tracking and the preparation of capital budgets. These initiatives have improved NDPL’s Consumer Satisfaction Index by 11 points, significantly raised system reliability, reduced aggregated losses by half, and greatly increased employee productivity.
2007
- Great Plains Energy
Great Plains Energy subsidiary Kansas City Power & Light (KCP&L) established a comprehensive energy plan to meet its region's growing demand for clean, affordable energy by developing new, clean energy sources, making proactive environmental and infrastructure improvements and creating innovative energy-efficiency and demand-response programs. KCP&L has worked with a wide variety of stakeholders, establishing true partnerships within its communities to create political and regulatory environments that have allowed the company to deliver on its promises.
- AES Latin America
AES Latin America developed a knowledge management process that enables the business to readily transfer proven operational techniques among its more than 45 generation plants and nine distribution companies to improve operational performance. This process helped the company set new records for plant availability and reliability, and significantly improved AES's customer service and satisfaction throughout the region, including some of its most remote and poor areas. This innovative program can be replicated across other regional groups at AES and promises to help improve the overall quality of life for thousands of people in Latin America and worldwide.
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