Green Mountain Power Exceeds Reliability Standards 2007 had fewer customer hours without power despite storms

"Our customers consistently tell us that providing reliable power is the most important thing we do, and in 2007 we had fewer customer hours without power, despite significant storms hitting our service territory," said Mary Powell, senior vice president and chief operating officer. "Major investments in tree-trimming and other system upgrades have had a direct effect on improving system reliability."

An analysis of the causes of all the outages in Green Mountain Power's system during 2007 shows that outages caused by tree branches within the rights-of-way were at the lowest point in five years. Upgrades to the system and a fast response to the outages meant that the total amount of time customers were out due to tree branches within the rights-of-way was well below previous years.

Green Mountain Power had an average of 1.38 outages per customer, with an average duration of 1.79 hours. Although utilities are allowed to exclude major storms from these calculations, Green Mountain Power's vegetation management and storm restoration efforts enabled the Company to restore power quickly enough that none of the severe storms last year met the exclusion standard. Green Mountain Power's performance was significantly better than the national average of 2.3 hours per outage, as reported by the Edison Electric Institute.

Although trees caused the most outages in 2007, other significant causes were equipment failure, other weather events and animals.

The Company also met or exceeded all of its service quality standards in 2007. It answered 85 percent of calls within 20 seconds, well above the 75 percent standard as well as achieved 90 percent overall customer satisfaction.

Green Mountain Power also achieved its financial goals in 2007. Operating revenues were $229 million in 2007, as compared with $214 million in 2006, with net income of $10.7 million in 2007, as compared to $10.1 million 2006.

"Financial stability is a critical component of our ability to provide premier service to our customers. And while we are thrilled at both our financial and customer service performance for 2007, we strive to exceed these results in the future so that we can provide even better service to our customers," said Ms. Powell.

In the interest of reporting transparently to its customers, the Company publishes the results of its service quality standards on its website at http://www.greenmountainpower.biz.

Green Mountain Power (http://www.greenmountainpower.biz) is an electric utility owned by Northern New England Energy Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Gaz Métro, a leading Québec energy company with a long history of investment in Vermont. Green Mountain Power transmits, distributes and sells electricity and utility construction services in the State of Vermont in a service territory with approximately one quarter of Vermont's population. It serves approximately 94,000 customers.