Florida Power & Light Company continues to improve the quality and reliability of service to its customers and now ranks among the top 35 percent of U.S. utilities. A recent benchmarking study shows that FPL improved the average time customers are without service by about 50 percent since 1997.

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"FPL has worked hard to provide the infrastructure and upgrades necessary to ensure electricity is available to meet growth and that reliable service is maintained," said Armando Olivera, FPL senior vice president of Power Systems. "Our goal is to give our customers our best service, meet their expectations and maintain their trust. We hope to accomplish this by continuing to improve our infrastructure and service reliability."

Key indicators used to measure the quality of electric service show that FPL has improved the average time a customer is without power during a year and it is nearly half what it was in 1997, improving from 2.3 hours (137 minutes) to 1.2 hours (69 minutes) in 2001. Other U.S. utilities average 107 minutes.

While the number of interruptions per customer in a year has improved by 27 percent in the last four years, the average time to restore service has improved by 30 percent during the same time.

Since 1997, the company has spent nearly $600 million to upgrade its electricity delivery system. FPL has replaced or upgraded nearly 4.5 million feet of underground electrical cable and built 318 main distribution power lines. The upgrades are necessary to keep up with the growth within FPL's service territory as well as improve service reliability.

FPL employs state-of-the-art technology, preventive maintenance and service restoration processes by expanding its use of data telemetry, which provides real-time information to employees, enabling them to re-route power and prevent interruptions. This advanced technology is complemented by FPL's customer care center operations, which provide customers with better, faster information about outages and when they might expect service to be restored.

"Our customers expect us to plan for the future, providing them with electricity as they go about their day," said Mr. Olivera. "It is our responsibility to report to them what causes an outage, how widespread it is and when they will have their lights back on."

"We've come a long way toward improving the reliability of our service over the last four years," said Mr. Olivera. "We are building and strengthening our system, and the result is better service for our customers."

Florida Power & Light Company is the principal subsidiary of FPL Group, Inc. , one of the nation's largest providers of electricity-related services with annual revenues of more than $8 billion. The company serves approximately 3.9 million customer accounts in Florida. FPL Energy, LLC, an FPL Group energy-generating subsidiary, is a leader in producing electricity from clean and renewable fuels. Additional information is available on the Internet at www.fpl.com .

                     Reliability 2001 Annual Progress

                                2001      2000     1999       1998    1997
  Average time customer
   is without power
  (in minutes) in a year        69.1      70.3     75.2      100.2   136.8
  Average restoration
   time (in minutes)            56.6      58.3     60.6       64.9    80.9
  Average number
   of outages per customer      1.22      1.21     1.24       1.54    1.69
  Average number of momentary
   interruptions per customer   11.0      10.8     11.1       11.7     N/A

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SOURCE: Florida Power & Light Company