MORRIS COUNTY — Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) has completed upgrades on more than 80 major circuits this year to help enhance service reliability to approximately 175,000 customers in about 150 communities in northern and central New Jersey.
The $4.7 million program included: installing 750 new pieces of high tech equipment to help pinpoint problem areas and restore service automatically; placing 250 animal guard devices on poles and in substations to limit the number of outages caused by squirrels, birds and other critters.
Also, it included attaching 390 lightning arrestors on electrical equipment to help protect the system from stormy weather; and proactively replacing 50 poles, 330 crossarms and about 18,000 feet of wire.
“Upgrading our distribution circuits is an important part of the overall work we do because it focuses on enhancing the part of our electrical equipment that is closest to our customers,” said Mark Jones, vice president of operations for JCP&L. “These projects are designed to reduce the number of service interruptions our customers might experience or reduce the duration if an outage occurs.”
During 2017, multiple projects were included to enhance circuits. In Morris County, projects were done in Parsippany-Troy Hills, Boonton Township, Chester Borough, Chester Township, Denville, Jefferson, Kinnelon, Mendham Borough, Mendham Township, Montville, Morris Plains, Morris Township, Morristown, Mountain Lakes, Mount Olive, Netcong, Randolph and Roxbury.
JCP&L is a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. and serves 1.1 million New Jersey customers in the counties of Burlington, Essex, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Warren.
