AFTER the release of its most recent Consumer Survey Report, the Guam Power Authority will continue to adopt a consumer-focused framework in the implementation of its current and upcoming programs as a way to further improve its satisfaction and performance ratings. 

“We will concentrate on customer-focused initiatives to put them in the center of everything we do and to really respect their role as the people we serve. So everything we do – as we generate and transmit power – we will make sure that the customer is communicated to, treated well, and provided with good quality service,” stated GPA Assistant Manager Melinda Camacho in an interview with Variety.

Last year, GPA conducted customer assessment surveys on Guam. The target population for the study was all heads of households, defined as those who made decisions and paid bills on Guam.

According to the survey results, around 52 percent of the respondents gave a rating of 6 or higher out of a possible 10 in terms of company satisfaction. In addition, 70 percent of respondents gave a rating of 6 or higher to another key metric in the survey, “satisfaction with GPA services.”

Renewable

GPA General Manager Joaquin Flores acknowledged the power utility scored poorly in some areas of the survey, such as one of the benchmarking points on “leadership in energy efficiency and renewable energy.”

But Flores said GPA hopes this rating will improve next year since the power utility just signed its first renewable energy contract this year and is in the process of signing another contract this September.

“We are still negotiating on the second contract, which is for 10 megawatts of wind and 5 megawatts of solar. The contract will be signed in September. The solar piece will be done in about a year while the wind part won’t be done in about three years. The location is in Layon near Dandan Road,” Flores said.

Outages

GPA is also hoping to further improve its service and company rating on power outages. According to survey results, 85 percent of respondents reported having an outage in the past year.

In order to address this concern, Camacho said the power utility will be embarking on initiatives to improve maintenance practices and dispatch response time, as well as invest in capital improvement projects to enhance services.

“There are a lot of capital improvement projects that are underway. Most of our bond proceeds that we recently got will address a lot of those issues in terms of reliability. These projects will include generator upgrades and transmission line upgrades. We are also doing underground line projects in Agat and Sinajaña,” Camacho stated.

According to Flores, GPA is currently conducting a survey of its commercial customers and will be disseminating another set of residential customer surveys to gather more in-depth information.

“This is the first step in response to our audit. Utilities of our size should be doing this on a regular basis – in fact on an annual basis – to kind of measure all of the things that we are doing, to see if we are making a difference in customer service and satisfaction,” Flores concluded.