FirstEnergy Pennsylvania Electric Company (FE PA), a subsidiary of FirstEnergy doing business as Met-Ed in northeastern Pennsylvania, has upgraded its distribution system in southeast Monroe County to help prevent service disruptions and accommodate ongoing residential and commercial growth.
The work comprised of rebuilding part of an existing power line with larger diameter wire capable of carrying more electricity and helping customers to be comfortable during hot and cold weathers.
"We reconstructed part of the main line parallelling Marshalls Creek Road with new utility poles, wires, crossarms and other equipment to enhance electric service for about 1,300 customers in Marshalls Creek and Middle Smithfield Township,” said John Hawkins, FirstEnergy President, Pennsylvania. “This significant investment will help us meet increasing electrical load growth in this busy corner of our Pocono Mountains service territory and provide additional grid resiliency in a heavily wooded region that regularly experiences severe weather."
Crews have completed work on a 1.6-mile section of the 34.5 kV line following Marshalls Creek Road from Brushy Mountain Road to Wooddale Road.
The project included:
- Replacing existing wire with larger wire capable of transporting more electricity to meet the area's increasing electrical demand, including in the Wilderness Acres and Wooddale subdivisions.
- Replacing 43 utility poles, 110 crossarms, guy wires and other hardware with new equipment.
- Replacing aging fuses and insulators and adding animal guards preventing animals from contacting energized equipment and causing outages.
- Replacing 13 protective devices safeguarding the line from lightning strikes.
The upgrades were completed as part of FE PA's Long Term Infrastructure Improvement Plan (LTIIP) in the Met-Ed service area, a $153 million initiative and a part of Energize365 to accelerate capital investments to the company's electric distribution system over five years to provide a continued electric service reliability for customers.
