As the beginning of summer nears, PSEG Long Island announces that it is prepared for hurricane season and to meet peak demand during extreme heat situations in the coming months. The company’s ongoing electric infrastructure and storm hardening improvements help provide electric reliability to Long Island and the Rockaways throughout the year.
PSEG Long Island has incorporated numerous enhancements and upgrades to the electric grid, its systems and its storm processes, including its contingency procedures.
“Providing reliable electric service to 1.1 million customers is a long-term commitment, and our personnel work year-round to ensure the grid is ready for summer’s extreme weather conditions,” said Michael Sullivan, vice president of Electric Operations, PSEG Long Island. “The improvements we have made over the past nine years will help us deliver consistent, resilient power to our customers, today and in the future.”
Electric Infrastructure Improvements
Across Long Island and the Rockaways, PSEG Long Island has prepared the electric infrastructure by focusing on substation, and transmission and distribution improvements, as well as by performing circuit and equipment inspections using helicopters and infrared technology.
PSEG Long Island’s infrastructure improvements for summer 2023 include:
- Installing new or upgraded distribution transformers in Rockaway Beach, Barrett, and Brooklyn Avenue substations to provide additional capacity during peak demand
- Installing 14 new distribution feeder lines in Brightwaters, Montauk, Westhampton, Garden City, Massapequa, Oceanside and Bridgehampton areas to accommodate load growth
- Converting 4 kilovolt (kV) feeders to a 13.8 kV feeder in the Hither Hills and Montauk area to provide additional feeder capacity
- Performing 33 kV substation conversions at Buell, Amagansett, Navy Road, Culloden Point and Hero substations to improve reliability and provide additional capacity during peak demand in the East End
- Installing a new 69 kV underground transmission circuit in the Brookhaven area to improve generation deliverable capability in eastern Long Island
- Installing a new 33 kV underground transmission circuit in the Rockaways to provide additional capacity to accommodate load growth on the Rockaway Beach Peninsula
- Replacing a transmission transformer at Glenwood substation to improve reliability in the area
- Reconfigure 69 kV substation transmission connections at Pilgrim substation to improve reliability in the Brentwood area
Storm Hardening Programs
Since the implementation of the FEMA-funded storm-hardening program funded in 2014, PSEG Long Island has completed storm hardening and reliability work on more than 1,000 miles of distribution mainline circuits.
PSEG Long Island is proud to continue its storm hardening work with Power On, an initiative started in the spring of 2020 that will continue to improve reliability by strengthening distribution lines, targeting the most vulnerable circuits across Long Island and the Rockaways. Since the launch, an additional more than 275 miles of distribution mainline circuits have been storm hardened with stronger poles, thicker wire and other modern equipment.
From the first quarter of 2022 through the first quarter of 2023, the sections of circuits that are storm hardened saw a 49% reduction in damage leading to outages compared to the rest of the distribution system.
To further protect against storm damage to the energy grid, arborists from PSEG Long Island’s Tree Trimming program work throughout the year to identify and trim tree limbs in rights of way and along easements that could potentially cause outages during or after a storm. Since 2014, PSEG Long Island removed more than 102,500 hazardous trees and/or large limbs along the distribution and transmission system and trimmed more than 24,000 miles of distribution and transmission line clearance in accordance with the industry best practice clearance standard. This standard preserves the health of the tree and directs future growth away from power lines. In addition, a new vine mitigation program identified, cut and treated more than 18,000 vine locations across Long Island and the Rockaways.
PSEG Long Island also prepares its dedicated workforce for summer by conducting annual hurricane and tropical storm drills and employee training; by developing emergency summer operating plans; and by performing summer-peak reliability analyses to ensure there is sufficient capacity to meet electric demand on high-heat days.
Recent Comments