TRENTON, N.J. – Jersey Central Power & Light must answer for its lackluster restoration response to severe thunderstorms that tore through the state over the Independence Day weekend, leaving tens of thousands of New Jersey ratepayers without power for days during a historic heat wave.
Assemblyman Alex Sauickie, a member of the Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee, demanded on July 6 that the NJ Board of Public Utilities hold public reliability hearings to get answers about the power company’s ongoing reliability and preparedness failures, which this round left more than 200,000 customers without power, with some areas of the state drenched with 6 inches of rain in 24 hours. Some didn’t have power restored until July 7.
In a statement issued July 15, BPU said, “Many residents experienced prolonged outages during dangerously high temperatures, along with reports of lengthy estimated restoration times, inadequate communication with local officials, and concerns about the adequacy of utility restoration resources.” They invited members of the public who would like to share their experience of power outages during the holiday weekend to submit comments for review. Each utility company that operates in New Jersey must file a postmortem on its respective storm response report before Aug. 4.
“This is a good first step, but it is only a first step,” Sauickie (R-Ocean) said. “Year after year, we are told JCP&L is sinking millions into fixing its reliability issues, and BPU is holding them to account. Yet we continue to suffer through long outages and poor communication, all while paying the highest utility costs in the nation. I am holding BPU to account.”
Sauickie wants the post-storm reports from utility companies to include the number of customers affected, restoration timelines, staffing levels, mutual aid deployment, infrastructure failures, and recommendations before the next major storm. The BPU must examine utility storm preparedness, restoration efforts, communications with customers and local officials, vegetation management, equipment failures, and whether ratepayer-funded reliability investments produced measurable improvements, he added.
“The BPU and JCP&L can’t keep issuing statements that talk about reliability and affordability and then go back to carrying on business as usual,” Sauickie said. “It’s time to focus on proactive, preventative measures that keep the lights on and electric bills low.”
Four major electric utility companies operate in New Jersey: JCP&L, with 1.1 million customers; PSE&G, the largest, with 2.3 million customers; Atlantic City Electric, with 565,000 customers; and Rockland Electric, with 73,000 customers.
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