PECO invests millions to strengthen grid in Chester County, Pa.

PECO, Pennsylvania’s largest electric and natural gas utility, is making a multimillion-dollar investment in Chester County to modernize and harden the electric grid to prevent customer outages this year.

Over the longer term, PECO plans to invest approximately $6 billion across its electric and natural gas systems over the next five years to inspect equipment, enhance infrastructure, invest in new equipment, and perform vegetation management work.

In all, the work encompasses 77 electric reliability projects across Chester County in 2022, some of which include replacing equipment in Tredyffrin Township; upgrading and installing poles, wires, cables, and transformers in East Marlborough Township; and enhancing the local underground electric distribution system in West Chester Borough.

In addition, PECO actively installs reclosers, which can automatically restore service or isolate damage. In 2021 alone, 269 new reclosers were installed, bringing the total to 3,250 system-wide. Over the past five years, the installed reclosers have avoided approximately 4.6 million power interruptions for customers.

“Our customers are the focus of everything we do, which is why we’re prioritizing this strategic investment plan to ensure safe and reliable service to better withstand extreme weather and pave the way for clean energy resources,” Brian Crowe, PECO’s vice president of technical services, said. “Modernizing our energy infrastructure is critical to meeting the needs for thousands of residential and business customers across Chester County.”

Enhancing energy infrastructure while supporting more clean energy resources is a key part of PECO’s Path to Clean, which seeks to reduce operations-driven emissions by 50 percent by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

Also, PECO has provided more than $4.9 million in financial assistance in 2021 in Chester County.