Underground Line Replacement Enhances Service Reliability for JCP&L's Barrier Island Customers

Company using advanced trenching technology to help protect the environment

HOLMDEL, N.J., Nov. 22, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L), a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE), is replacing an underwater, high-voltage power line to enhance service reliability to New Jersey's barrier islands. The $12.5 million project is expected to be completed in mid-December.

Once in service, the new 34.5-kilovolt line will be one of four high-voltage power sources crossing the Barnegat Bay to serve more than 13,000 JCP&L customers on the barrier islands, including the communities of 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, FirstEnergy's President, New Jersey: "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 12-ton sled that is designed to be environmentally friendly and cause minimal disruption to aquatic life. This sled, which is about the size of a school bus, will use water jets to create a trench. The jets will shoot water at a pressure of 150 pounds per square inch to create a trench that is one foot wide and more than 10 feet deep, allowing for the installation of the new cables.

A large barge will transport heavy reels of armored submarine cable and equipment while pulling the sled at speeds of up to 10 feet per minute. As the sled moves along the bay floor, the trench collapses behind it, leaving a shallow depression to mark the cable's location.

JCP&L serves 1.1 million customers in the counties of Burlington, Essex, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Warren. Follow JCP&L on X @JCP_L, on Facebook at facebook.com/JCPandL or online at jcp-l.com.

FirstEnergy is dedicated to integrity, safety, reliability and operational excellence. Its electric distribution companies form one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York. The company's transmission subsidiaries operate approximately 24,000 miles of transmission lines that connect the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. Follow FirstEnergy on X @FirstEnergyCorp or online at firstenergycorp.com.

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SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.