Rochester Public Utilities

What This Utility Data Tells You

Rochester Public Utilities is a municipally-owned utility operating in Minnesota under EIA identifier 16181. It reports service to approximately 59,088 customer accounts and generated about $0.16 billion in annual electric revenue, with a service footprint spanning 5 ZIP codes. Municipal ownership means a local board or city council typically oversees this utility, and it is exempt from federal income tax.

In 2023, the average Rochester Public Utilities customer experienced 30.1 minutes of power interruptions, a measure known as SAIDI, or System Average Interruption Duration Index. That places this utility well below the 120–180 minute national benchmark, signaling strong grid hardening and fast restoration practices. Over the same period, SAIFI (outage events per customer) was 0.49, putting the typical customer at roughly 0 distinct interruptions that year. Once major event days (hurricanes, ice storms) are excluded, SAIDI comes down to 25.6 minutes, and the spread against the headline 30.1 indicates how much weather, versus routine infrastructure, drove the outage total.

With 4 consecutive years of EIA data (2020–2023), Rochester Public Utilities's reliability record can be judged on trend rather than one isolated year. SAIDI climbed from 29.6 to 30.1 minutes over that window, a shift that can point to worsening weather exposure or delayed grid modernization.