Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) has completed scheduled reliability enhancement projects for 2013 on 94 major circuits that serve more than 100,000 customers in northern and central New Jersey, the company says. In addition, the company has completed multiple reliability inspection programs by year end, including infrared scans on nearly 400 distribution and sub-transmission lines and inspecting 284 overhead and underground circuits and nearly 34,000 utility poles.

“The circuit upgrades include adding automatic reclosing devices, replacing crossarms, lightning arrestors, fuses, animal guards and spacer cable devices as needed, which is expected to help limit the frequency and duration of power outages,” said JCP&L in a Press Release. “The work is part of JCP&L’s overall $200 million investment in 2013 designed to help improve service reliability.”

“These infrastructure investments are designed to enhance day-to-day service reliability now, along with maintaining our system’s capability to handle future load growth,” said James Fakult, president, JCP&L. “When combined with the similar investments we made last year, JCP&L remains committed to enhancing the quality of service we provide our customers.”

Other highlights of the JCP&L reliability work this year include:

• Completing $25 million of vegetation management along 3,600 miles of electrical lines.
• Energizing the $7.3 million Tewksbury substation.
• Completing a $12 million transmission line upgrade from Whippany to Roseland.
• Completing a new $10 million transmission line from the Larabee to Howell substations in Monmouth County.
• Completing $1 million of upgrades to a 34.5 kilovolt (kV) transmission line in Sussex County.
• Reconnecting service to tens of thousands of customers in Monmouth and Ocean counties as repairs were completed on homes damaged by Hurricane Sandy.

JCP&L also added new employees this year and implemented new tools to enhance communications with customers and public officials:

• Three area managers were added to help maintain closer ties with local officials and the communities they represent.
• JCP&L named its first manager of Emergency Preparedness.
• Partnerships were created with International Brotherhood of Electrical Worker unions in the northern and central service territories to provide extra safety personnel during emergencies.
• “My Town” web pages were added to provide comprehensive municipal information for outages and infrastructure.
• A free smartphone app and text alerts were created to improve customer information and service.

Overall, since 2001 JCP&L has completed more than $2 billion in projects to enhance reliability in its distribution and transmission systems. [TLS]