JCP&L Meeting Set For Montville Power Line Upgrades

JCP&L may be doing construction in Montville in the near future to upgrade some of its power lines. 

One of the items brought up at the township committee meeting on Tuesday night was JCP&L’s open house meeting set for Wednesday and Thursday at the Holiday Inn in Parsippany.

Township Administrator Victor Canning said that the meeting will be for the planned Montville-Whippany Reinforcement Project and the “proposed project will add a new 230 kV (Kilovolt) power line between Montville and the Whippany Substation in East Hanover."

On Wednesday, it’ll be from 6 – 8 p.m. and on Thursday from 10 a.m. – noon and residents can learn and review the project and ask questions.

The proposed route for the project involves constructing a new, 7-mile 230 kilovolt transmission (power) line in Morris County through parts of East Hanover, Parsippany and Montville to enhance service reliability, add redundancy to JCP&L's system and meet the growing demand for electricity in the region, according to a JCP&L release.

Mark Jones, JCP&L Vice President of External Affairs, sent out a letter to residents about the meeting and the preferred route for the project would primarily be constructed within or next to existing JCP&L lines in Morris County through Montville, Parsippany and East Hanover. They’re also considering alternate segments that could replace portions of the preferred route in Parsippany and Montville, according to Jones’ letter.

JCP&L will seek at least a 100-foot easement for the proposed power line. The project will upgrade the existing substations in Montville and Whippany, which should not require additional land.

They plan to file the project petition the NJ Board of Public Utilities (BPU) in their first quarter of 2014 and file a permit application with the NJ DEP in June 2015. if BPU approves it, construction will begin September 2016 and create about 100 construction jobs.

PJM Interconnection requires that this project be built and has requested that the project be in service by June 1, 2017. This project is part of JCP&L’s LITE (Local Infrastructure and Transmission Enhancement) program, a $200 million, multi-year comprehensive reliability plan.

If you can’t make it, you can also contact transmissionprojects@firstenergycorp.com or 1-800-589-2837