PSE&G May Ratchet Down Price of Multibillion-Dollar Upgrade Project

Public Service Electric & Gas is revamping plans to harden its power grid based on new engineering analyses of its utility substations, changes that may lower the cost of the multibillion dollar program to its customers.

In a more than 700-page filing to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, the Newark utility is now recommending that all but two of the 28 substations targeted for upgrades be raised and rebuilt to prevent flooding of the facilities, which wiped out power in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy to hundreds of thousands of customers.

In February, the state’s largest electric and gas utility filed with the agency a $3.9 billion so-called Energy Strong program, a 10-year effort to protect its infrastructure from extreme weather and natural disasters. Its initial proposal before the BPU envisions spending $2.6 billion over the next five years, much of which would go to work involving utility substations.

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