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JCP&L will invest $12.5 million to replace an aging underwater power line beneath Barnegat Bay, FirstEnergy Corporation said in a news release on Friday, Nov. 22. The project was expected to be finished by mid-December.
The 34.5-kilovolt line will be one of four high-voltage sources serving barrier island communities like Point Pleasant Beach, Lavallette, Seaside Heights, and Island Beach State Park. The upgrade aims to enhance power capacity and reliability for more than 13,000 customers.
JCP&L said the improvements will particularly help when energy demand peaks in the summer.
"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," said Doug Mokoid, president of FirstEnergy New Jersey. "Completing this work in an innovative, environmentally sensitive manner is also important to us."
The project will install a new 7,500-foot submarine cable using a 12-ton sled designed to reduce environmental impact. This sled, about the size of a school bus, employs high-pressure water jets to dig a trench more than 10 feet deep, allowing for safe cable placement.
A barge carrying armored submarine cable and equipment will pull the sled at speeds of up to 10 feet per minute, leaving a shallow depression to mark the cable’s location as the trench collapses behind it.
JCP&L has more than 1.1 million customers across North and Central Jersey.
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