West Penn Power plans $17M in reliability upgrades
West Penn Power said Wednesday it will spend $17 million in additional reliability work in its customer service area this year, including some projects in Washington County.
The company said in a press release the work includes installing protective devices on wires and poles, rebuilding electric lines, adding other special equipment and installing automated and remote control devices – all designed to help reduce the number and duration of service interruptions.
“The work is designed to benefit customers by complementing the projects we already do each year to enhance the reliability of our electric system,” said David W. McDonald, regional president of West Penn Power, which serves 720,000 customers. “Whether it’s upgrading existing circuits or installing ‘smart’ equipment that can be operated remotely, our goal is to make our system the best it can be when it comes to providing reliable service.”
The company will spend about $3.5 million to install new electronic circuit breakers or “reclosers” in 26 key substations in Washington and Westmoreland counties that can be operated remotely from the company dispatch center, providing operators the ability to restore power more quickly than if a crew was needed to investigate a circuit lockout.
The work specific to Washington County also includes spending $440,000 to replace about 1.5 miles of underground residential distribution cable in Quail Acres in North Strabane Township with insulated, corrosion-resistant cable to help prevent outages and reduce the time necessary to locate and repair faults underground.
• Across its service area, the company will spend another $3 million to install remote-controlled switches on higher-voltage distribution circuits to allow automatic and remote switching to help limit the number of customers affected when an outage occurs;
• Spend $2.7 million to install new fuses, reclosers and wire on overhead facilities on more than 80 circuits and;
• Spend $2.5 million to rebuild portions of 38 distribution circuits across the service area by replacing electrical components such as switches, cross arms, transformers, reclosers, capacitors and insulators to help prevent outages caused by equipment issues.