PSEG Long Island is Prepared for Summer 2016

More than $500 million in infrastructure investments made to continue to deliver best-in-state reliability

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May 24, 2016, 10:30 ET

UNIONDALE, N.Y., May 24, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Throughout the last two years, PSEG Long Island has invested millions of dollars to significantly upgrade and maintain best-in-class electric reliability. These investments have allowed PSEG Long Island to achieve and maintain the best reliability of all overhead systems in New York. The continued improvements prepared the system to meet peak demand during extreme heat situations in the upcoming summer months.

The upgrades included substation, transmission and distribution improvements, as well as circuit and equipment inspections, including helicopter inspections across Long Island and the Rockaways.

"The investments we've made are critical and allow us to continue providing our customers reliable service each and every day, even in extreme weather conditions," said John O'Connell, PSEG Long Island vice president of transmission and distribution. "We continuously monitor and identify areas where we can upgrade the equipment or complete preventive maintenance work, increasing performance and delivering the reliable, resilient service our customers expect."

PSEG Long Island has invested more than $500 million in infrastructure upgrades, making the system more reliable and resilient. Some of the recent major improvements include:

A new substation in South Manor to help meet the growing load in the Town of Brookhaven.
A new transmission capacitor bank at the Nesconset substation to maintain acceptable voltage levels in the Town of Smithtown.
New protective equipment installed at the Ridge substation in the Town of Brookhaven.
Expanding the Amagansett substation in the Town of East Hampton to mitigate voltage risks.
Installing a new transmission cable between the East Garden City and Meadowbrook substations in the Town of Hempstead to maintain reliable service to Nassau County Medical Center and the surrounding area.
Routing an existing, nearby circuit into the Southampton substation in the Town Southampton. This additional supply prevents a single point of failure and maintains acceptable voltage levels in the area.
Upgrades to the Southold substation, increasing its capacity by more than 200 percent to meet with the area's growing needs.

The implementation of the storm hardening program funded by FEMA to strengthen Long Island's distribution system also continues. The multi-year program focuses on strengthening main-line primary wires that were most damaged by Hurricane Irene and Superstorm Sandy. This work includes tree removal, strengthening the poles, installing stronger wires that are more resistant to tree damage and new automatic switching devices.

To further minimize storm damage to the electric system, 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. Tree limbs that come in contact with electric lines remain a major cause of customer outages during storms. In 2014-15, as a direct result of its move to the industry best practice clearance standard, PSEG Long Island reduced the number of tree-related outages by approximately 60 percent on circuits that were trimmed.

O'Connell continued, "With the ongoing improvements and surplus capacity, we are prepared to meet the summertime demand of our customers and stand at the ready to promptly restore power in the event of any outages."

PSEG Long Island has also continued to improve the customer service experience through technology advancements. In 2015, a new mobile site, My Account and MyAlerts service was launched. My Account allows customers to do business with the utility from nearly anywhere without having to download an app. The new mobile site enables customers to report an outage and check the status of a current outage from their smart devices. Through the MyAlerts service, customers have the option of signing up for several billing, account and outage alerts that can be sent to their email address or text-enabled device to keep informed about an outage.

PSEG Long Island operates the Long Island Power Authority's transmission and distribution system under a 12-year contract. PSEG Long Island is a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group Incorporated (NYSE:PEG), a publicly traded diversified energy company with annual revenues of approximately $10.4 billion.

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