Southwest Tennessee E M C

What This Utility Data Tells You

Southwest Tennessee E M C is a member-owned electric cooperative operating in Tennessee under EIA identifier 17694. It reports service to approximately 51,911 customer accounts and generated about $0.12 billion in annual electric revenue, with a service footprint spanning 48 ZIP codes. Cooperative ownership means the utility is run for the benefit of the ratepayer-members who elect its board, rather than for shareholder returns, which can shift how rate and investment decisions get made.

In 2023, the average Southwest Tennessee E M C customer experienced 701.4 minutes of power interruptions, a metric called SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index). Excluding major weather events from that total, that falls inside the typical 120–180 minute national benchmark, in line with what most U.S. distribution utilities report. The SAIFI figure, which tracks average outage events per customer, came in at 3.98 for the same period, meaning customers statistically saw about 4 distinct interruptions that year. Strip out major event days (hurricanes, ice storms) and SAIDI falls to 234.4 minutes; the difference from the headline 701.4 shows how much of the outage total came from weather rather than everyday grid issues.

The EIA dataset includes 4 years of continuous reporting (2020–2023) for Southwest Tennessee E M C, which lets you see whether reliability is trending up or down rather than judging from a single snapshot. Over that span, SAIDI rose from 220.9 to 701.4 minutes, possibly reflecting tougher weather years or grid upgrades that have not caught up yet.