Atlantic City Electric modernized 1.3 miles of parallel transmission lines spanning the Great Egg Harbor Bay.
MAYS LANDING Atlantic City Electric has completed construction on a major transmission line upgrade project to enhance energy service for thousands of its customers in Atlantic and Cape May counties.
The project involved rebuilding and modernizing 1.3 miles of parallel transmission lines spanning the Great Egg Harbor Bay. The transmission lines connect Cape May and Atlantic counties and play a key role in delivering energy across the region.
It's important we continue to strengthen and modernize critical energy infrastructure throughout South Jersey to enhance reliability for our customers, AC Electric Project Manager Dan Loveland said in a release This is the only transmission line in our service area with structures in a large body of water, and I'm proud of how our team worked together to tackle this challenge, using innovative approaches to complete the upgrades efficiently and minimize any potential impacts to the bay and nearby communities.
The project replaced existing lattice transmission tower structures, originally constructed in the 1960s, with new, state-of-the-art steel transmission poles, capable of withstanding hurricane-force winds up to 120 miles-per-hour. These upgrades increase the power carrying capacity of the two transmission lines and create a stronger and more resilient energy grid.
To minimize any potential impacts to the unique marine environment surrounding the transmission lines, crews used a barge to install the new transmission poles and a helicopter to install new fiber optic equipment on the transmission lines. These smart technologies help create a stronger, more redundant energy system and improves system reliability by remotely relaying critical data to the company in real-time and enabling the company to automatically restore service more quickly or isolate damage.
The project is part of Atlantic City Electric's broader reliability improvement effort across South Jersey to help reduce outages and enhance the resiliency of the local energy grid. This effort includes modernizing infrastructure, such as transmission and distribution lines, and adding greater automation on the local energy grid with new substations and equipment.
Projects such as this have contributed to customers' experiencing continued improvements in the reliability of their energy service. Since 2011, energy system upgrades and new innovative technologies have driven a 56% decrease in the frequency of electric outages.
For more information on reliability enhancement projects across South Jersey, visit atlanticcityelectric.com/reliability.
