While the hurricane is long gone, the work continues for New Jersey’s battered utility companies. Power outages were felt throughout the state, with many residents reporting outages lasting for two weeks. NJ Today Managing Editor Mike Schneider spoke with PSE&G’s President and Chief Operating Officer Ralph LaRossa about his company’s response to Sandy and how it’s moving forward to improve service.
All in all, LaRossa says he’s proud of PSE&G’s effort in bringing power back to 1.7 million customers affected by Sandy. Still, he says the system is vulnerable in certain spots that are held together with band aids.
“Our biggest concern remains a lot of our substations and switching stations that were under salt [and] as we all know, salt water and metal don’t mix,” said LaRossa. “It’s just a matter of time before we have some challenges there, so we’re actively pursuing a replacement strategy for some of those assets.”
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Repair and replacement of parts vary. Some can be rebuilt in their place while others require special orders, says LaRossa.
“Some big pieces of equipment, whether it be transformers or voltage regulators or some of the other equipment in those stations, we are placing some of those orders and getting ready,” he said. “But we’re also trying to look ahead and see what we need to do to harden it so we’re not faced with a situation like this again.”
Utility companies have been in the hot seat since last year, beginning with Tropical Storm Irene, followed by the surprise October snowstorm which downed trees and power lines. This year, Sandy and the nor’easter provided a one-two punch in knocking out power across the state. But with each new natural disaster, LaRossa says lessons were learned.
“The game has changed for New Jersey,” warned LaRossa. “I don’t want to get into a climate discussion but I can tell you these hurricanes are not turning left into North Carolina, they’re turning left into New Jersey and now we have to rethink everything we do.”
And that includes a re-examination of everything from PSE&G’s equipment to its processes. To help in that effort, PSE&G sought help from a utility with some experience dealing with hurricanes — Florida Power & Light. LaRossa says the expertise included “little things” that went a long way to improve productivity.
“It was everything from where they place the port-o-johns when the crews were leaving in the morning … and how we got crews back and forth from buses from their hotels to their trucks [and] just the way they stage the trucks when they came in at night and how they parked them,” he detailed.
While there was plenty of criticism by New Jersey residents and local officials in some parts of the state, no other utility received as much blame as the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA). Last December, PSE&G won a 10-year contract to manage the non-profit Long Island Power Authority’s electric transmission and distribution system.
LaRossa emphasized that the agreement is a management contract and that PSE&G would not be purchasing assets. He says the company will be bringing a lot of the processes that have succeeded in New Jersey to the Long Island operation. He also expressed pride in the fact that his company was selected to help out the troubled utility.
“Long Island chose us over every other utility in the United States, several of them locally here who were finalists, to take over the management of that system. So our employees are proud of that.”