Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L), a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp., is undertaking a $12.5 million project to replace an underwater high-voltage power line aimed at improving service reliability for New Jersey's barrier islands. The completion of this project is anticipated by mid-December.
The new 34.5-kilovolt line will become one of four high-voltage power sources crossing the Barnegat Bay, serving over 13,000 JCP&L customers in communities such as Point Pleasant Beach, Bay Head, Mantoloking, Normandy Beach, Brick, Lavallette, Dover/Toms River, Ortley Beach, Seaside Heights, Seaside Park, Berkeley and Island Beach State Park.
Doug Mokoid, President of FirstEnergy in New Jersey stated: "The replacement of this high-voltage line offers service-enhancing redundancy into our barrier island system and delivers the power capacity that the local communities require when the population swells in the summer months. Completing this work in an innovative, environmentally sensitive manner is also important to us."
A new 7,500-foot submarine cable will be installed using a special sled weighing 12 tons designed to minimize environmental impact and disruption to aquatic life. This sled uses water jets with a pressure of 150 pounds per square inch to create a trench one foot wide and more than 10 feet deep for cable installation.
A large barge will carry heavy reels of armored submarine cable and equipment while pulling the sled at speeds up to 10 feet per minute. As it moves along the bay floor, the trench collapses behind it leaving a shallow depression marking the cable's location.
JCP&L serves approximately 1.1 million customers across several counties including Burlington, Essex, Hunterdon and others. More information about JCP&L can be found on their social media platforms or website.
FirstEnergy operates one of the largest investor-owned electric systems in the nation with its transmission subsidiaries managing around 24,000 miles of transmission lines connecting regions from the Midwest to Mid-Atlantic.
For further inquiries or information regarding this project or other operations contact Chris Hoenig for news media inquiries or Gina Caskey for investor-related questions.