PECO Reliability Enhancement Projects in Delaware County Should Benefit More Than 35,000 Local Customers

PECO will spend more than $17.2 million in service reliability projects this year that will benefit roughly 35,000 Delaware County customers.
Across southeastern Pennsylvania, PECO will invest more than $254 million in system upgrades and capital improvements. The full capital plan includes more than two-dozen major projects in Philadelphia and the suburbs, as well as customer-targeted reliability enhancement work, and increased automation for reduced outage duration. In addition, funds will be used for preventive maintenance such as circuit patrols along many of the company’s 2,200 distribution circuits using infrared imaging and right-of-way maintenance tree trimming. PECO also will expand its use of lightning arrestors and animal guards to prevent a large number of weather and animal-related outages.
Locally, some of the larger PECO projects are:

• More than $6.4 million to trim trees along nearly 700 miles of aerial wire, benefiting customers primarily in Aston, Bethel, Chester, Nether Providence, Ridley Park, Springfield, Upper Chichester and Upper Darby. Such maintenance helps PECO prevent tree-related service interruptions—especially during storms—and reduce the length of the interruptions when they do occur. PECO has found that areas where tree clearance work was completed experience 39 percent fewer outages due to vegetation in the year after scheduled work.
• Upgrades of more than $4.2 million to substations in Marcus Hook, Radnor, Springfield and Upper Darby to meet growing energy needs in those areas and the surrounding communities.
• Additionally, 18 local circuits have been targeted in PECO’s “top priority program” this year for reliability improvements that serve customers in Bethel, Concord, Haverford, Lower Merion, Middletown, Newtown Square, Sharon Hill, Springfield and Upper Darby. In this program, PECO targets 5-10 percent of its “under-performing” circuits for engineering analysis and enhancements.

“Our customers count on us to keep the lights on no matter if it’s 90 degrees or 9 degrees outside,” said Mary Jane Roache, PECO regional electric operations director. “That is a responsibility that we take very seriously. These investments enable us to meet our customers’ expectations for safe, reliable energy service.”