GAHANNA, Ohio, April 1, 2013 – Customers of AEP Ohio, a unit of American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP), experienced an overall improvement in the frequency and duration of electric outages in 2012. In its annual reliability standards filing to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), AEP Ohio reported customers across the state experienced a 20 percent improvement in the number of outages and the minutes of interruption.

"Customers are experiencing the benefit of the company’s extensive vegetation management program and our continued investment in our distribution infrastructure," said Pablo Vegas, AEP Ohio president and chief operating officer. “Our reliability performance has been trending in a positive direction over the past several years as we continue to execute projects to improve the reliability and performance of our system.” 

AEP Ohio is required to file its reliability performance to the PUCO annually. The filing consists of reliability indices that measure the average outage duration for each customer and the average number of interruptions that a customer would experience. It also includes a calculation combining the two measures to determine the average outage duration that any given customer would experience. Major events such as the derecho and super storm Sandy are excluded from the PUCO measures because they don't reflect daily operating conditions of the system.

For customers in both the former Columbus Southern Power (CSP) service territory and Ohio Power service territory, a reduction in the number of interruptions, customers affected and minutes interrupted was reported. For CSP, the number of interruptions was reduced from 16,502 to 14,932. Total customers affected dropped from 1,034,442 to 826,165, and total customer minutes interrupted decreased from 144 million to 115 million minutes. Ohio Power had similar reductions. The number of interruptions fell from 20,598 to 18,354.  The total customers affected reduced from 746,716 to 596,642. The total customer minutes interrupted went from 115 million to 90 million minutes.

While AEP Ohio’s CSP territory had a decrease in the number of interruptions, customers affected and minutes of interruptions, due to the way performance numbers are calculated, the company missed its mandated target number by five minutes based on a benchmark of 135.17 minutes.

Although the companies merged in 2012, AEP Ohio is required to report the reliability indices by company. It filed in June 2012 for new merged company standards. Approval of this filing is pending.
                                                                                                                                                             ---

AEP Ohio provides electricity to nearly 1.5 million customers of major AEP subsidiaries Ohio Power Company in Ohio and Wheeling Power Company in the northern panhandle of West Virginia. AEP Ohio is based in Gahanna, Ohio, and is a unit of American Electric Power. News and information about AEP Ohio can be found at aepohio.com.

American Electric Power is one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, delivering electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a nearly 39,000-mile network that includes more 765-kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems combined. AEP’s transmission system directly or indirectly serves about 10 percent of the electricity demand in the Eastern Interconnection, the interconnected transmission system that covers 38 eastern and central U.S. states and eastern Canada, and approximately 11 percent of the electricity demand in ERCOT, the transmission system that covers much of Texas. AEP’s utility units operate as AEP Ohio, AEP Texas, Appalachian Power (in Virginia and West Virginia), AEP Appalachian Power (in Tennessee), Indiana Michigan Power, Kentucky Power, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, and Southwestern Electric Power Company (in Arkansas, Louisiana and east Texas). AEP’s headquarters are in Columbus, Ohio.

                                                                                                                                                          # # #