JCP&L Agrees to Implement Morristown Underground Network Improvements

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Feb 10, 2012, 01:24 ET

MORRISTOWN, N.J., Feb. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) has agreed to implement the recommendations in a report on the Morristown underground electrical network, which was accepted today by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU).

"The report provides a thorough analysis and offers valued recommendations," says Don Lynch, president of JCP&L. "We worked with the BPU staff and the Special Reliability Master (SRM) who performed the review, as the report was developed and will continue to update them and Morristown officials on our progress."

The report said the underground network meets design, construction and reliability standards for U.S. electric utilities and outlined recommended enhancements to underground equipment and engineering, operations and inspection practices. Most of the recommendations in the report will be completed in 2012 and many are already under way.

Report recommendations scheduled to be implemented include:

Upgrading relays in the Morristown substation feeding the network to shorten restoration times when outages occur
Completing a study of a secondary portion of the network to determine if additional fuses are needed to help protect against equipment damage
Adding special guards at the Morristown substation to prevent animal-related power outages
Replacing two electrical switches in the underground network
Conducting a pilot project to investigate available methods for securing manhole covers
Providing additional training for employees on vault inspections and data collection to support effective preventative maintenance

JCP&L serves 1.1 million New Jersey customers in the counties of Burlington, Essex, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Warren.

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