For the sixth time in eight years, PPL Electric Utilities has ranked highest among electric utilities in the eastern United States in J.D. Power and Associates’ annual study of business customer satisfaction.

 “It means a lot to our employees and to the company that our business customers have expressed their satisfaction with us through the J.D. Power and Associates’ study,” said David DeCampli, senior vice president of Operations for PPL Electric Utilities.

“We know how important reliability is to our customers. We also know that our business is about more than just delivering electricity. It’s about listening to customers, meeting their needs, being good neighbors and making a difference in helping them manage their energy use.”

DeCampli said the company has done that consistently through eight decades and continues to strive for improvement today, maintaining rates that are below average in Pennsylvania and the Northeast, investing in improvements to its distribution system and putting in place new tools to help customers better manage their energy use.

He said independent studies such as the J.D. Power and Associates study and the company’s own quarterly research help PPL Electric Utilities gauge how well it’s doing, understand customers’ expectations and identify ways to improve customer service.

The award is the company’s 13th overall — more than any other utility in the country — since J.D. Power and Associates began studying utility customer satisfaction. In addition to its six business customer satisfaction awards, PPL Electric Utilities has earned the top honor for residential customer satisfaction in the East seven out of eight years.

In its 2007 study of business customer satisfaction, J.D. Power and Associates interviewed nearly 13,000 businesses served by the 58 largest electric utilities in the nation, based on the number of businesses served. In the study, PPL Electric Utilities ranked first in the East among 15 utilities and fourth in the country.

PPL Electric Utilities Corporation is a subsidiary of PPL Corporation and provides electricity delivery services to about 1.4 million customers in 29 Pennsylvania counties.

Headquartered in Allentown, Pa., PPL Corporation (NYSE: PPL) controls about 11,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the United States, sells energy in key U.S. markets and delivers electricity to more than 5 million customers in Pennsylvania, the United Kingdom and Latin America.