PSE&G Investing Millions to Improve Service

Wayne’s biggest energy provider is trying to bolster its infrastructure and reduce the amount of time it takes to restore power after severe weather events.

Public Service Electric & Gas is looking to improving service to 6,000 Wayne residents by improving a substation in Totowa.

The project is part of Energy Strong, a $3.9 billion initiative the utility company is spearheading to improve its infrastructure due to increasingly extreme weather, the company announced recently.

The company will spend about $350 million in Passaic County as part of the project.

“We’re trying to get to a point where our facilities, including the substation in Totowa, are not damaged as severely by severe weather events,” said Everton Scott, senior public relations manager, after he addressed the council at a meeting last week. “Hardening and improving our resiliency allows us to get back to normal operations quicker.”

Everton did not know how much was being spent to improve service in Wayne.

PSE&G has already upgraded two major underground power lines to increase the amount of power delivered to customers. Aboveground lines have been built out higher than the trees, which lessons the amount of tree trimming the company must perform.

Entire neighborhoods were without power for more than a week following Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 and superstorm Sandy earlier this year.

The township has attempted to quell long outages by asking the state Board of Public Utilities to revoke Jersey Central Power and Light’s (JCP&L) license to sell power in the town. Residents and officials complained that JCP&L’s equipment and infrastructure are old and need to be replaced immediately. Many of the company’s Wayne customers were without power for nearly two weeks following Irene.

“This program is a good program. Redundancy is important,” Mayor Chris Vergano said at the meeting. “I salute PSE&G for being proactive. I know it’s going to cost a lot of money and a lot of time but we can’t have people without power for 14 days.”

More than 50 municipalities, several chambers of commerce, and five county governing bodies have endorsed the program. 

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