Jersey Central Power & Light begins upgrade of 19 miles of transmission lines

A total of 19 miles of transmission power lines in New Jersey’s Monmouth County will be upgraded through two projects by Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L), which announced construction on the $53 million effort this week.

“These upgrades to our lines and equipment will help to fortify our transmission system and ensure that we can continue to meet the current and future needs of the customers we serve in the Monmouth County area,” Jim Fakult, president of New Jersey Operations for FirstEnergy, JCP&L’s parent company, said.

The projects will yield replacements of existing wires, hardware, and structures that have been part of area infrastructure since the 1970s. The updates are meant to reinforce the electric grid or reduce/prevent outages for approximately 50,000 customers.

Broken down, the projects will include upgrades of nearly six miles of 34.5 kV line connecting a substation in Middletown Township, N.J., to one in Union Beach Borough, N.J., while another 13 miles of 34.5 kV line connecting substations in Colts Neck Township and Matawan Borough, N.J., will also be replaced. A second circuit will be installed along the Middletown-Union Beach line for redundancy and greater flexibility, while the work from Colts Neck-Matawan will include reconfiguration to host two independent circuits. In both cases, the move to twin circuits will allow the company to keep service running if one needs to be de-energized for maintenance or is hit by outages.

The shorter line should finish in May 2023, while the longer is expected to be operational in December 2023. Both projects are part of the company’s larger Energizing the Future initiative, which has been pursued since 2014 and should span approximately $7 billion in total upgrades by the time it finishes.