Jersey Central Power & Light completed more than 160 infrastructure projects and other work in 2014 to help enhance service reliability to its 1.1 million customers in northern and central New Jersey.
"About $250 million was budgeted in 2014 for these projects that help enhance day-to-day service reliability for our customers along with maintaining our system's capability to handle future load growth," said Jim Fakult, president of JCP&L. "When measuring the average outage duration for customers for 2014, our results show a 17 percent improvement compared to 2013 results, which we can largely attribute to the infrastructure work that has been done this year, and in previous years, to make our system more robust."
Some of the key JCP&L projects in 2014 included:
Service reliability projects planned for in 2015 include new substations, transmission lines and circuit upgrades.
In 2014, JCP&L made it easier for customers to check the progress of service restoration efforts when they experience a power outage. The company's 24/7 Power Center outage maps now display the status of crews restoring service after a power outage. With this enhancement, JCP&L customers can see when crews have been dispatched, when they are working on a repair, and when additional crews or equipment are needed to complete restoration work.
JCP&L customers also can subscribe to email and text message alert notifications to receive billing reminders, weather alerts in advance of major storms, and updates on scheduled or extended power outages. Customers can also use two-way text messaging to report outages, request updates on restoration efforts, and make other inquiries about their electric accounts.
As part of its storm restoration process, in 2014 JCP&L rolled out two new apps that employees can use on mobile devices to automatically enter damage information into the company's outage management system. The new hazard app on company smart phones allows responders in the field to electronically document hazardous situations. Once the hazard assessment is complete, repair crews can use the new damage assessment app on company mobile computers to develop an itemized list of materials and equipment that will be needed to make repairs at damage locations. The app uses a highly detailed map showing JCP&L's circuits.