Paris Board of Public Utilities

Even though the five board members of the Paris Board of Public Utilities are appointed by the mayor — of a city with a population of just over 10,000 — the utility serves all of Henry County. That's 21,000 electric customers and more than 1,500 miles of electric lines.

 

The Paris BPU was formed in 1938 after electric and water facilities were purchased from KY-TN Power and Light. Today, BPU has 75 employees: 29 in the electric department, 21 in water/wastewater, 15 office employees and ten in engineering/metering.

The general manager is John Etheridge. Cole Edwards is director of electric operations while Terry Wimberley is director of water/wastewater operations as well as assistant general manager. Jeff Thompson is director of engineering and Beverly Underwood is business manager.

Through the years, the Paris BPU has been a leader in innovative business practices. Last year, the utility began a "pre-pay" program. "Using the daily interval readings of AMI metering, Pre-Pay provides a daily billing option that reduces the credit balance customers carry on their accounts," Etheridge says. Low credit balance notifications are sent to customers via e-mail or text messages. Disconnection and reconnection of service is in real-time using multi-speak integration and can be done seven days a week.

"The Pre-Pay program allows our customers to structure payments in a way that best fits their needs," Edwards says, "as well as view or monitor their daily usage online." Pre-Pay customers can make payments through any existing payment channel. There are advantages to both customers and the BPU: no credit check, no deposit on electric service or alternative to increasing electric deposits.

The real-time usage information eliminates "surprise" electric bills and gives customers a flexibility of payments as they manage electric usage. Pre-Pay customers do not receive a monthly electric bill and their are no penalties on service.
For the BPU, it reduces customer service calls, minimizes disconnects and reduces write-offs. Likewise, SmartHub is a tool that allows customers to manager their accounts with mobile and Web apps fully integrated with the NISC iVUE system.

"This customer self-serve option is designed for the Web and mobile devices," Etheridge says, "to provide account information, mobile payments and usage details."

With an array of tools at the fingertips of both customers and utility staff, analysis can be done on current KWH usage as well as be compared with the usage the previous month. "Analysis," Edwards says, " can be viewed down to the day to show correlation between usage and weather temperature." Smarthub can also be used as a means of communication to notify customers with account issues. "It's a very unique tool that can be utilized by customers as well as our staff,"Etheridge says. The Paris BPU is a good citizen as well, with two program that benefit customers and the community. "Project Help" allows customers to sign a card which authorizes adding some dollar amount to go to the fund — which amounts to about $25,000 a year.

"Projecty Round-Up," on the other hand lets customers round up their monthly bills to the nearest dollar. The difference is put in a fund and distributed quarterly by a volunteer board. It usually generates between $80,000 and $90,000 annually.

"This June 10-11, we will be hosting the 19th annual Tennessee Valley Lineman Rodeo at Paris Landing State Park," Edwards says. Attracting linemen from throughout the Tennessee Valley, they compete in events based on traditional lifework skills and promoting safe work practices. It will be free to spectators.

Last, but certainly not least, the Paris Board of Public Utilities is one of 191 of the nation's more than 2,000 utilities to earn the Reliable Public Power Provide designation from the American Public Power Association. The award is for providing customers with the highest degree of reliable and safe electric service. The Paris BPU won the award also in 2009.

[Kenneth Stone, energy services and accounting manager at Braintree Electric Light Department of Braintree, Mass., and executive committee member of APPA’s RP3 Review Panel, presented the designees on May 18 during the association’s annual Engineering & Operations Technical Conference held in Sacramento, CA.

The RP3 designation recognizes public power utilities that demonstrate proficiency in four key disciplines: reliability, safety, workforce development and system improvement. Criteria within each category are based on sound business practices and represent a utility-wide commitment to safe and reliable delivery of electricity. The RP3 designation now lasts for three years (up from two), so the 97 utilities that earned the designation this year join the 94 that received it last year for a total of 191.

"Utilities that have earned APPA’s RP3 designation are implementing best practices for the industry, and are a testament to public power’s commitment to serving their community," said Stone.

"We’re honored to receive the RP3 designation," said John Etheridge, General Manager of Paris Board of Public Utilities. "Our utility staff puts in a lot of hard work to serve this community. RP3 represents a much appreciated recognition of this hard work."

This is the tenth year that RP3 recognition has been offered. APPA is the national organization representing more than 2,000 not-for-profit, community- and state- owned electric utilities. It is located in Arlington, VA.
RP3® is a registered service mark of APPA.