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Facing Summer Outages, First Energy Outlines Plans For Upgrades Throughout Jersey Shore
By Bill McLaughlin
The Ocean County Board of Chosen Freeholders welcomed Pete Johner, the area manager for Community Relations of JCP&L, to its pre-board meeting Wednesday afternoon.
While offering a mea culpa for past transgressions, the energy conglomerate representative got better than a passing grade for its recent efforts from the county leaders.
As recently as last summer, the greeting would have been tempered by a failure to keep up with increased demand. But there has been improvement, the board agreed, under difficult circumstances.
"Ocean County is unique because of its (geographical) size, the number of seniors who rely on air conditioning and the tourist industry," said Joseph H. Vicari, who was director of the board last summer.
Vicari said he called Johner personally on the July 4 holiday when some Shore customers lost power. It was one of a series of failures dating back to the workers' strike of 2005.
A case in point was the number of burned out street lights not replaced during the work stoppage.
"We had 3,000 (street lights out then) in the central (Ocean) region alone," Johner told the board. "We're down to about 500 now."
Johner urged residents to report darkened street lights to local police or to JCP&L directly. He said the replacements will be made in the order they're received.
A maintenance program to visually inspect circuits and look for blown fuses, broken crossarms, guying and other potential problems is conducted daily. Visual inspections of poles and circuits are also routinely done.
Plans for next year include replacement of underground cables; installation of reclosers; enhancement of circuits serving Hooper Avenue and Great Adventure; a new sub-transmission line from Cookstown to Great Adventure and another from Farmindale to Howell; extension of the Manitou Park circuit, and preliminary studies on placing new substations in Lacey, Howell, Farmingdale, and near Ocean County College in Toms River.
Johner said the purchase of the local power company by First Energy Corporation took a while to synchronize but the company is making a $12 million commitment to improve service in this area.
"For a five year period, nothing was being done in New Jersey," Johner said. "We had a five-day outage in Monmouth County and a recurring barrier peninsula problem. First Energy didn't realize the burden they took on originally. The number of outages here
was very high."
The rapid growth of the county in general - and towns like Jackson and Lakewood
in particular - stretched demand beyond capacity. So First Energy made a list of projects needed immediately.
One of those changes is to put a new distribution line under the Tunney-Mathis Bridge to upgrade capacity for the barrier peninsula. A problem with the existing cable resulted in failure back in the summer of 2003.
System wide upgrades will be made using company personnel and also independent contractors to speed the process of modernizing service.
A recloser program designed to limit the scope of outages will be aggressively followed in the next three years. Between 50 and 60 reclosers, which isolate the area where an outage occurs and allow the recloser to reset and resume energy output to unaffected areas, are planned. The reclosers will reduce the number of customers affected and the time needed to get all customers back on line.
When JCP&L opened its New Prospect Road facility in Jackson in 2002, Johner said, it was already at capacity and needed a redesign immediately.
Johner said the company is planning a 230,000-volt substation on Boston Road in Jackson along with new distribution substations on Vermont Avenue in Lakewood, and in the Pinewald section of Berkeley. Also there's a planned major substation near the Clayton Brick works in Manchester, and upgrades to the Dickman Avenue substation in Lavallette and the Seaside Park substation that would ease the drain on power-bearing lines. All projects are subject to approval by the state Public Utilities Board.
There will also be cable replacement in parts of Leisure Village West, Crestwood Village and Leisure Knoll and upgrades throughout portions of Jackson especially the area near Great Adventure.
"Our budget this year is the highest ever in the Central region," Johner said. "(First Energy) decided to pour money into New Jersey to ensure fewer outages and of shorter duration."
When pressed by members of the Freeholders board for a budget figure, Johner demurred.
"I was told not to say," he blushed. "Not to give out the budget number."
He did tell the board the company spent $115 million in 2006 and said the current figure is less than $200 million.
Freeholder James F. Lacey thanked Johner for his candor and for standing tall in the face of a great deal of flack.
"The company's name has changed a few times but he's been there for us all along," Lacey said.
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