Power outages are never convenient, especially when the temperature’s minus-4 degrees.
Richmond Power and Light customers experienced that inconvenience a slim percentage of the time last year. The utility’s average service availability index, the ration of customer hours when service was available to total hours of demand, was 99.9851%, according to statistics General Manager Tony Foster presented the RP&L board during its Feb. 2 meeting.
The 2025 reliability was a slight uptick from the previous two years although it trails the reliability percentages from 2018 through 2022. The margins, however, are very, very fine with all of the yearly indexes ranging between 99.9700% and 99.9950%.
Significant storms impacted the 2023 and 2024 reliability, Foster said. Last year, trees, weather and equipment/electrical failures caused the most outages. Animals and vehicles striking poles also caused outages.
The most significant weather event occurred June 18 when a storm caused fallen trees that impacted 2,089 customers for 171,510 lost customer minutes. Another company’s falling line created an equipment failure that impacted 358 customers near Straightline Pike for 172,556 customer minutes on a minus-4-degree night. Throughout the year, animal contacts impacted 1,143 customers for 40,050 customer minutes.
The utility impacts its reliability, Foster said, by investing in training and retention of personnel, system maintenance, tree trimming, data analysis and emergency reserves.
Cold spell
January’s bitter cold increased demand for RP&L and other electric utilities.
Foster said RP&L saw demand exceed 140 megawatts when it usually is in the 120s. The Indiana Municipal Power Agency operated the Whitewater Valley Station to generate additional power during the peak demand days.
Dump truck
Foster received board permission to solicit bids for a dump truck. RP&L could trade a 2011 International dump truck; however, Foster said the utility has had good luck with online auctions if the trade value included in bids is not high enough.
A version of this article appeared in the February 11 2026 print edition of the Western Wayne News.