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 2011 Edison Award (recognizing accomplishments achieved primarily in 2010) will be accepted in December 2010 and January 2011.
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
2010
- Portland General Electric
For the first time in more than 40 years, Chinook salmon, steelhead and sockeye salmon will have the opportunity to complete their life cycles in the Deschutes River basin. In December 2009 Portland General Electric and the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation successfully completed construction of a first-of-its-kind fish bypass/intake structure at their 465-MW Pelton Round Butte hydroelectric project. This 273-foot-tall Selective Water Withdrawal Structure returns temperatures in the lower Deschutes River, Ore., to historic patterns and restores downstream passage of Chinook, steelhead, and sockeye smolt, while maintaining existing generating capacity.
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Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG)
PSEG is intrinsically growing its business by aligning the interests of the company with the interests of society, specifically in the areas of combating climate change and creating jobs. PSEG has been advocating a three-pronged energy response to climate change: promoting energy efficiency, investing in renewables, and exploring new clean central station power.
In each of these areas, PSEG is creating new businesses – investing more than $ 1 billion in efficiency and renewables alone. These efforts, along with accelerated infrastructure investment, are creating thousands of direct and indirect green jobs.
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British Columbia Transmission Corp (BCTC) and Hydro-Québec
As British Columbia’s transmission system is aging, BC Transmission Corporation (BCTC) is committed to implementing innovative technology to provide reliable electricity to British Columbians. By adopting new methods and tools for transmission line maintenance, BCTC can deliver real improvements in system inspection, maintenance and safety. Hydro‐Québec (HQ) developed an innovative transmission line inspection robot, LineScout Technology (LST), dramatically increasing the ability for live line inspections and providing increased safety for inspection personnel. This joint BCTC/Hydro‐Québec inspection research project benefits both utilities and ushers in a new era of transmission line inspection and maintenance. This technology offers a new delivering platform and opportunities for deploying advance inspection and maintenance technologies and thus reduces costs, improving reliability and increasing safety for utilities throughout North America and the world. The project demonstrates the benefits of collaboration in developing innovative solutions.
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.
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