State Agency Clears PSE&G for Preliminary Work on Hardening Grid

The state is telling Public Service Electric & Gas to begin preliminary design and engineering work on plans to fortify 31 electric switching and substations flooded out during Hurricane Sandy, an event that left hundreds of thousands of its customers without power for days.

The order from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities deals with probably the most comprehensive element of the Newark utility’s $3.9 billion Energy Strong plan, a proposal aimed at reducing widespread power outages during extreme weather, such as Sandy.

The petition has generated much support and just as much controversy since it was submitted to the regulatory agency, which has committed to taking steps to harden the power grid. Doing so could keep as many as 2.7 million customers from losing power, as they did last fall after the superstorm devastated much of New Jersey.

At a time when the state suffers from some of the highest energy bills in the country, just how aggressive the BPU will be in mandating upgrades to the power grid remains to be seen. The agency already has initiated two proceedings to determine how to allocate storm restoration costs among utilities, which run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and another one to decide how best to harden the power grid. Those costs also won't be cheap, as PSE&G’s proposal demonstrates.

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