2026 Reliability Awards – Belmont Light Recognized Nationally

Category: awards and recognition, Uncategorized   |   Posted On: June 3, 2026

Belmont Light is proud to have received two national awards for utility excellence in 2026: The RP3 Diamond Level designation and a Certificate of Excellence in Reliability.

General Manager Craig Spinale (left) and Lead Engineer Mike Bourgeois (center) accepting the RP3 Diamond Level on behalf of Belmont Light from Jeremy Ash, Chair of the RP3 Review Panel and General Manager at Kansas City Board of Public Utilities (right).

RP3 Diamond Level

Belmont Light has earned a Reliable Public Power Provider (RP3) Diamond Level designation from the American Public Power Association for providing reliable and safe electric service to Belmont, MA.

The RP3 designation, which lasts for three years, recognizes public power utilities that demonstrate proficiency in four key disciplines: reliability, safety, workforce development, and system improvement. Criteria include sound business practices and a utility-wide commitment to safe and reliable delivery of electricity. Belmont Light joins more than 250 public power utilities nationwide that hold the RP3 designation, which is awarded at three levels: Gold, Platinum, and Diamond. Less than 6% of public power utilities nationwide earn Diamond Level, which is the highest tier.

“Receiving an RP3 designation is a great honor and a testament to the work these utilities are doing to follow industry best practices,” said Jeremy Ash, Chair of APPA’s RP3 Review Panel and General Manager at Kansas City Board of Public Utilities, Kansas. “These designees have distinguished themselves as committed to pursuing excellence and perpetual improvement for the benefit of their communities.”

“We are incredibly proud to earn this distinguished designation,” said Craig Spinale, General Manager of Belmont Light. “We go to work every day to ensure reliable service to this community, and it’s nice to see this hard work recognized on the national level.”

Certificate of Excellence in Reliability

Belmont Light has also been recognized by the American Public Power Association (APPA) for achieving exceptional electric reliability in 2025. APPA tracks power outage and restoration data for electric utilities through its subscription-based eReliability Tracker service. Once per year, APPA’s Reliability Team compares this data to national statistics tracked by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) for all types of electric utilities.

From the APPA website: “Based on the data submitted to the U.S. Energy Information Administration from 2013-2023, public power utilities consistently are more reliable than other types of electric utilities. Across the main reliability indices, customers of public power utilities experience the fewest minutes of outage time – during and outside of major events – and fewer outages than customers of investor-owned utilities or cooperatives.”

In 2025, the average Belmont Light customer experienced 0.77 outages in 2025, compared to 1.75 for customers nationwide. Even with major events included power outages in Belmont only lasted an average of 134.76 minutes, compared to 520.78 minutes for all US utilities. *

*Nationwide statistics based on EIA-861 reporting from 2024, which was the most recent year available at time of publishing.