Customers of NB Power who have been complaining the utility is not as reliable as it used to be haven't been exaggerating — it isn't.

"Twenty years ago, NB Power had a sterling reputation," says Fredericton resident Mike Gange, who lost his power twice for extended periods in the last five months.

"Today, I think the perception is that is it rusty and dusty."

NB Power is within days of completing its worst year ever for power outages.

Its customers have gone a combined 17 million hours without electricity so far in 2014, more than double its previous record — which it set last year.

The December 2013 ice storm cost NB Power approximately $12 million and left thousands of customers without electricity. (Submitted by NB Power) The utility blames those back-to-back low points on uniquely fierce ice storms last December and a bull’s eye strike from post-tropical storm Arthur in July for the increase in outages.

But NB Power’s own numbers show it has been sinking in national and regional reliability rankings in one key category for a number of years, the length of time customers spend in the dark.

"When it comes to a major storm, we are almost guaranteed that we are going to lose our power," said Ashley Nickerson, who lives in the rural community of Halcomb outside Miramichi.

Nickerson said she has lost power at least twice in the last year and has come to expect the worst when the weather forecast looks grim.

"As far as reliability during a storm or a major situation, I don't find them [NB Power] reliable at all."

Until recently, NB Power had long been a regional leader in the reliability of its service.

Hours of ave. NB Power customers were without power 1994-1999 27.4 2000-2004 29.2 2005-2009 30.3 2010-2014 90.6 Source: NB Power

In the 15 years spanning 1994 to 2009, its customers lost power for an average of less than six hours each per year.

That number jumped to more than eight hours in 2010 and then to more than nine hours in 2011, at the time that was the worst year for customers left in the dark since the legendary ice storm of 1998.

But then last year, NB Power customers endured 7 million hours of outages — 21 hours per customer — with that number more than doubling this year.

Electricity has been cut off to more than 50,000 customers six different times since the start of 2013.

Even Nova Scotia Power, which NB Power dominated in reliability rankings through the 1990s and 2000s, will post shorter customer outage numbers this year, for the fourth year in a row.

NB Power has doubled its tree-trimming budget in an effort to reduce future outages. (CBC) Tony O’Hara, NB Power’s vice-president of engineering and chief technology officer, said he knows customers are frustrated.

"In the last year, as a result of the ice storm and the result of Arthur, there are certainly a portion of our customers that are very, very sensitive to outages," said O’Hara said.

"You know today they would be looking for us to do things that would help to improve that situation."

NB Power has doubled its budget for cutting trees along its power lines to try and prevent future outages and fix its declining reliability numbers, something Nova Scotia Power did in 2009.

Still, O'Hara said that doesn't mean NB Power's failure to spend more in the past was a mistake.

"At that time the performance of the system was quite satisfactory," said O'Hara.

"So the amounts that were spent at that time were appropriate for the time."