Met-Ed Completed Upgrades in 2013 Designed to Enhance Service Reliability

Jan. 9, 2014
FirstEnergy's Pennsylvania utility, Metropolitan Edison Co., has completed scheduled reliability enhancement projects and upgrades for 2013 on major circuits that serve more than 548,768 customers throughout Pennsylvania. 

FirstEnergy's Pennsylvania utility, Metropolitan Edison Co. (Met-Ed), completed scheduled reliability enhancement projects and upgrades for 2013 on major circuits that serve more than 548,768 customers throughout Pennsylvania.  In addition, Met-Ed completed multiple reliability inspection programs by year end, including inspecting 157 overhead and underground circuits and nearly 33,500 utility poles.

The circuit upgrades include adding automatic reclosing devices, replacing crossarms, lightning arrestors, fuses, animal guards and spacer cable devices as needed, which are expected to help limit the frequency and duration of power outages.  The work is part of an overall expenditure of more than $100 million in 2013 designed to help improve service reliability.

"These infrastructure investments and vegetation management programs are designed to enhance day-to-day service reliability now, along with maintaining our system's capability to handle future load growth," said Mike Doran, Met-Ed regional president.  "Our commitment is to continue delivering the quality service our customers expect and deserve."

Other highlights of the Met-Ed reliability work in 2013 included:

  • Completing $10 million of vegetation management along more than 2,800 miles of distribution electrical lines.
  • Energizing the $10 million Northkill Substation in Berks County.
  • Completing an approximately $2 million transmission line upgrade in the York area to enhance the transmission system.
  • Completing a nearly $1 million installation of new sectionalizing devices such as fuses and reclosers to help limit the scope of unplanned outages across the service territory.
  • Installing equipment to help maintain proper voltage levels. This is intended to benefit industrial and large commercial customers that operate large motors, drives and other machinery.

Met-Ed is a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp.  Met-Ed serves approximately 550,000 customers in 15 Pennsylvania counties.

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