NEWS

Duke, Progress lagged behind smaller companies in ice storm response: survey

CHAPEL HILL -- Household customers of Duke Power Co. and Progress Energy were less satisfied with their power provider’s performance after last December’s ice storm than customers served by smaller utilities, according to a telephone survey of affected households in 36 N.C. counties.

Those results are part of new analysis coming from a survey conducted by researchers at the Howard W. Odum Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and RTI International. Investigators telephoned 457 households in the 36 counties included in North Carolina's application for federal disaster relief to assess the impact of the ice storm.

About three-quarters of all households surveyed lost power, the survey showed. The average outage for all households was about two-and-a-half days for Duke Power and Progress Energy customers compared with about one-and-a-half days for those served by smaller utilities. The differences between the smaller utilities and the two larger power companies were statistically significant.

"The Odum Institute-RTI survey shows that the smaller utilities generally score better than Duke and Progress when using days without power as a yardstick" said Dr. Kenneth Bollen, director of UNC’s Odum Institute. "Their customers, on average, had power restored one day faster than customers of the two larger companies."

The survey asked people to rate, using a 0 to 10-point scale, how much they agreed with the statement: "I was very satisfied with my electric power company’s response to the ice storm."

Lower numbers indicated disagreement; higher numbers represented agreement. A "5" meant that they neither agreed nor disagreed. The average scores for Duke Power and Progress Energy households were 6.6 and 6.5, respectively. The smaller utilities’ average score was about a point higher at 7.6.

"Aside from the significant differences in scores for smaller power companies and the two larger companies, we found that the fewer days a household went without power, the higher they rated the

performance of the power companies," said Bollen. "In fact, the days without power seem to explain why the smaller companies came out better on the performance ratings. They were quicker to restore power, on average, than Duke Power and Progress Energy. Being quicker led to higher satisfaction ratings for the smaller companies."

The survey posed similar satisfaction questions about the responses of local governments and the governor. Using the same scale, those with no loss of power had an average score of about "7" for their satisfaction ratings. However, each day without power led to a statistically significant decline in the household’s rating of those responses to the storm.

Survey respondents were randomly selected from households in the 36 counties affected by the ice storm, reaching as far west as McDowell and Rutherford counties and as far east as Halifax and Edgecombe counties. Most were clustered along the Interstate 85 corridor. The Odum Institute-RTI survey was conducted between Dec. 21-29.

UNC's Odum Institute, founded in 1924, maintains one of the nation's largest archives of polling and census data and supports social science research at Carolina through statistical and survey consulting, short courses and colloquia, and a state-of-the-art computing lab.

RTI International, an independent, nonprofit organization, is dedicated to conducting research that improves the human condition. With a staff of more than 2,050 people, RTI offers innovative research and development and a full spectrum of multidisciplinary services in health and pharmaceuticals, advanced technology, survey and statistics, education and training, social and economic development, and environment.

- 30 -

Web Links: Odum Institute, http://www.odum.unc.edu. RTI International, http://www.rti.org

Note: Bollen can be reached at (919) 843-5990 or bollen@email.unc.edu. Peter Leousis also can be contacted at (919) 966-2350, leousis@email.unc.edu.

News Services contacts: Mike McFarland, (919) 962-8593, mike_mcfarland@unc.edu, and Karen Moon (broadcast), (919) 962-8595, karen_moon@unc.edu