Infrastructure Improvements to Blame, in Part, for Power Outage in Township

A power outage that affected 2,200 township homes Wednesday was related to infrastructure improvements being done at the Green Village substation, a Jersey Central Power & Light spokesman said today.

Spokesman Ron Morano said work is being done at the substation to improve service reliability in the area. Workers were making upgrades to one of two circuits at the substation, and Morano said the unexpected outage occurred because of the way the power system was configured while the upgrades were being made.

The 2,200 homes lost power roughly between 1 and 4 p.m. Some traffic lights were also knocked out.

Because one of the circuits is out of service, it took longer than usual for workers to restore power. There were also some instances, Morano said, when power was restored to some homes before going back out again.

Lately, there have been several power outages in the same area.

"We understand these customers have had some outages in recent weeks," Morano said. "We're very much aware of that, and we've taken corrective action to minimize that."

He said there were also brief power interruptions in some township homes on Monday.

The infrastructure improvements at the substation are expected to continue until next week. Morano said Jersey Central Power & Light took some steps to eliminate future outages—it made some adjustments to breakers operating in the area.

"We certainly understand the customers were upset," he said.