PECO is ready to meet the increased demand that customers and their cooling appliances place on the electric system during the summer months. The company has completed 41 critical projects as part of a $400 million capital investment plan for infrastructure improvements and new facilities this year. This work includes several large substation projects, local capacity expansion projects, circuit patrols and upgrades, and hundreds of tasks across its six county service territory to ensure reliable service for its 1.6 million electric customers this summer.

PECO’s summer readiness program ranges from inspection and maintenance of aerial and underground electrical equipment, substations and other facilities, infrastructure improvements, particularly in growing areas, emergency response drills and other training for employees, and maintenance and testing of various computer and other support systems.

Electricity usage increases in the summer because of greater energy required to run air conditioners and other cooling appliances, mostly for residential customers. Based on normal weather, PECO expects a peak demand of 8,455 MW this summer, which is about 4 percent lower than last year mostly due to economic conditions. The record demand for electricity occurred on August 3, 2006 when customers pushed demand to 8,932 MW during an eight-day extreme heat wave. PECO is working with the PJM Interconnection to ensure adequate power supplies this summer.

Some of the notable projects completed include:

• Completion of the $25 million Tunnel substation in University City. The facility was built to relieve electric load on other substations in Center City and ensure reliability for the growing electric demand in University City, specifically from major expansion projects by the University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital, and West Philadelphia. Tunnel supplies eight distribution circuits that feed large office, research, and residential buildings.
• More than $8 million for new electric distribution circuits in the Plymouth Meeting and Lower Merion areas and to expand electric supply from the company’s Gladwyne substation.
• About $5 million for the installation of new transformers at Goshen substation and reconfiguring of circuits to improve reliability on circuits that serve East Bradford.
• More than $4.1 million in vegetation clearance. This work helps PECO prevent service interruptions especially during storms, reduce the length of the interruptions when they do occur, and improve service in areas that experience more outages than the regional average. PECO has found that areas that are the focus of tree clearance experience 30-40 percent fewer outages in the year after scheduled work.
• Additionally, PECO identified 109 priority circuits this year for reliability improvements that include supplemental tree and vegetation clearance and the installation of or maintenance on existing reclosers, sectionalizers and distribution automation, which help pinpoint problems and quickly restore service to customers.

“Our customers count on us to keep the lights on and the natural gas flowing, no matter what temperature it is outside,” said Craig Adams, PECO senior vice president and chief operating officer. “That is a responsibility that we take very seriously. These investments enable us to keep those promises and deliver the quality service our customers expect.”