BGE, Central Hudson Gas take home top honors in Chartwell’s 2022 outage awards

By Suzanne Haggerty, Director of Customer Engagement and Insights –

Chartwell is excited to announce the winners of our 2022 Best Practices Awards in Outage Communications and Outage Restoration.

Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) and Southern California Edison (SCE) were the winners in the Outage Communications category, while Central Hudson Gas & Electric, Duke Energy and Hydro Ottawa will be taking home the honors in the Outage Restoration category.

Gold and silver winners will share information on their winning efforts at PowerUp: Chartwell’s Outage Conference, which will be held June 7-9 at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta. The conference features multiple sessions focused on outage-related topics, including new communications tools, channels and technologies; adapting to changing customer expectations; and improved outage-reporting tools.

BGE will take home the Gold Outage Communications Award for the development and launch of the BGE Outage Tracker, which translates complex operational information into minute-to-minute updates to reassure customers that the utility is working 24/7 to make necessary repairs as soon as possible.

“Outage trackers are set to become a vital tool in utility communications arsenals,” said Russ Henderson, Director of Research and Councils at Chartwell. “BGE’s development team has changed the game with this offering. By refreshing information on the tracker every two minutes and providing 24/7 updates for specific addresses, they’re certain to see fewer calls to CSRs and higher CSAT after outages.”

Central Hudson Gas & Electric will take home the Gold Outage Restoration Award for its Municipal Portal, implemented to provide actionable outage intelligence to the utility and allow for interactive, two-way reporting between municipalities and Central Hudson Gas.

“The portal has enabled Central Hudson Gas to close communication gaps and mobilize crews more effectively,” Henderson said. “It’s truly a comprehensive toolset that enables streamlined response efforts.”

Chartwell will be publishing case studies, available to Chartwell Insight Center members, on all winning entries after the conference.

Also taking home 2022 honors in the Outage Communications category:

• SCE earned the Silver Outage Communications Award for its improvements in rotating outage and wildfire communications, which allowed the utility to swiftly and effectively communicate to customers before, during and after outages.
• BGE will take home the Bronze Outage Communications Award for its Planned Outage Notifications, which allow the utility to notify customers about maintenance outages through multiple channels.

Also taking home 2022 honors in the Outage Restoration category:

• Duke Energy earned the Silver Outage Restoration Award for its Street & Area Light Repair Tool, which empowers customers and community members to easily and accurately report street light outages and receive repair updates via text or email.
• Hydro Ottawa will take home the Bronze Outage Restoration Award for the Battery Loan Pilot Program, which provides residential customers impacted by planned power outages due to cable replacement projects the opportunity to temporarily secure a portable battery pack to power simple electronic devices.

If you have any questions about the awards or the upcoming conference, please email Suzanne Haggerty, Director of Customer Engagement and Insights