JEA Wins Chartwell's 2019 Best Practices Award

2019-03-20

Jacksonville, FL (March 20, 2019) - Chartwell Inc., announced today that JEA is a recipient of its 2019 Best Practices Awards in Outage Communications.  JEA earned a Silver Award among midsize utilities (fewer than 700,000 customers) for its multi-channel Restoration 1-2-3 process, which goes into effect during a major storm event. Restoration 1-2-3 focuses on JEA’s actions during each phase of storm restoration and acknowledges the key role customers play in efforts to restore power safely and as quickly as possible, when massive outages occur due to a major storm. 

“This year’s award entries really illustrate the intense focus that the industry has placed on improving outage communications,” said Russ Henderson, Senior Research Manager at Chartwell. “Projects that utilities have been talking about for years, such as outage status trackers and platforms that allow customers to easily and safely share information on downed lines, are finally making their way into reality.” 

Hydro Ottawa is the Gold Outage Communications Award winner in the midsize Utilities category, for its extensive crisis communications strategy.  During a four-day outage in 2018, the company was able to leverage social media and streaming video to keep customers and other stakeholders updated.  The Bronze Outage Communications Award goes to Hawaiian Electric for the development, implementation and promotion of a mobile app and an online outage map/reporting tool.  The company’s marketing efforts resulted in significant engagement with the new channels.

“JEA’s first priority during a storm is the safety of everyone in our community,” said Melissa Dykes, President and Chief Operating Officer at JEA.  “Restoration 1-2-3 goes a long way to communicate that priority as well as the process that we use to restore power as quickly as possible. It is an honor to be acknowledged along with the other companies in our category.”

Large Utilities category (more than 700,000 customers) honors go to Southern California Edison (SCE), Oncor, and Florida Power & Light (FPL), winners of the Gold, Silver and Bronze Outage Communications Awards, respectively.

Chartwell will share information on the winning programs during its 2019 Outage Communications Conference, set for June 6-7 in Chicago.

About JEA: JEA is the largest municipal electric utility in Florida and one of the largest water and sewer utilities in the nation providing electric, water and sewer service to residents and businesses in northeast Florida.

About Chartwell:  Chartwell is a specialized information provider for the utility industry that distributes strategic research and facilitates issue-targeted forums for collaboration among industry peers. 

Category:

• corporate
• customer
• storm