Illuminating Company completes smart grid enhancements in Lake County, Ohio

The Illuminating Company, a FirstEnergy Corp. subsidiary, announced Monday it had completed smart grid updates across Lake County, Ohio.

The upgrade will help prevent or minimize service disruptions, the company said. Work included installing automated equipment and technology in substations and along power lines in Madison, Mentor, Painesville, Perry, Willoughby, and the surrounding areas. Upgrades began in 2020 as part of the company’s three-year portfolio of grid modernizations and are on track to be completed this fall.

“As a result of system enhancements over the past three years, nearly 835,000 customer minutes of interruption have been saved in Lake County alone through our smart grid technology,” said Pat Mullin, acting president of FirstEnergy’s Ohio operations. “These upgrades allow us to restore service to our customers faster following severe weather as well as pave the way for a more robust power system to support different types of energy sources in the years to come.”

The company said personnel have finished upgrades at six substations and installed 71 new reclosing devices in the substations and along power lines to limit service interruptions. The reclosing devices work like a circuit breaker, the company said, to shut off power when trouble occurs as well as automatically reenergize a substation or power line within seconds for certain types of outages. The company said the technology is safer and more efficient because it allows utility personnel to automatically restore service instead of sending a crew out to investigate the outage.

When more serious issues arise, like a tree falling on a line, the equipment will isolate the outage to a smaller area to limit the number of affected customers. The device’s technology will pinpoint the location of the issue and help utility personnel understand the issue, that in turn helps to speed up service restoration. The location of the devices were determined by past outage patterns, the company said.

Additionally, 72 capacitor banks were installed, the company said, to regulate voltage. This measure will provide energy savings by reducing how much electricity needs to be generated and evenly distributing electricity.