FirstEnergy Corp. has planned about 70 major transmission and distribution infrastructure projects and other work in 2015 to help enhance reliability in the Pennsylvania Power Co. (Penn Power) service area.
Major projects planned for this year include relocating substation equipment at a power plant that is being deactivated, building new circuits, replacing underground cables, inspecting and replacing utility poles, and installing automated remote control devices designed to reduce the number of outages Penn Power customers might experience.
"Work completed in previous years and the planned infrastructure projects during 2015 are designed to improve system reliability," said Randall A. Frame, regional president, Ohio Edison and Penn Power. "Our goal is to enhance the quality of service we provide our customers now, while helping to prepare our system for future growth."
Scheduled projects in the Penn Power service area in 2015 include:
- Constructing a new control building at a substation in New Castle.
- Adding several large capacitor banks, also in New Castle, to enhance transmission system voltages.
- Completing a new 138-kilovolt (kV) transmission line connecting substations in Campbell and McDowell to enhance service reliability in the area.
- Installing remote-control devices at strategic grid locations to help reduce the number of outages across the entire Penn Power service territory.
- Replacing the wire and other equipment on an eight-mile section of a 138-kV transmission line that runs from Hoytdale to New Castle.
- Replacing equipment at a substation near the Bruce Mansfield Plant to provide redundancy and enhance reliability.
- Inspecting and replacing, as needed, more than 11,000 wooden poles in the Penn Power service area. This inspection process is conducted on a 12-year cycle. Inspections began in January, with replacement work scheduled to be completed throughout the fall.
