O&R: Managing to Beat the Summer Heat's a Year-'Round Job

PEARL RIVER, NY June 10, 2008 — Over the past 12 months, O&R has spent nearly $66 million to fortify, improve and test the reliability of O&R's electric system to meet summer peak demands for electricity.

That investment builds on the more than $287 million O&R has spent over the past five years on electric system maintenance and electric system reliability capital projects.

O&R Vice President of Operations Jim Tarpey said, "Our projects represent a substantial investment in the economic prosperity and future of our communities. We are taking these steps to meet growing demands for electricity and to improve the reliability of the electric infrastructure that serves our customers."

Rockland County

The most significant project O&R has developed to address summer electric service reliability in Rockland for this summer was built and placed into service last summer.

That is the $16-million Line 60 project.

That project, which expanded the Tallman substation and rebuilt the 10-mile-long O&R electric transmission line from Hillburn to Spring Valley, was designed to significantly expand O&R's electric delivery capacity in Rockland County to meet growing electricity demand and to improve the reliability of supply from the state power grid for approximately 85,000 customers.

The project was built because nearly all of Rockland County has limited transmission coming into the area and had relied upon electricity from Mirant's Lovett Generating Plant during the summer months to meet peak demands for electricity.

The Lovett plant was closed this spring and all of its generating units are now out of service. Mirant has begun demolition work on the plant.

With the O&R transmission line improvement, sufficient power can be delivered in Rockland to ensure reliability without the Lovett plant.

This directly improves electric delivery system reliability for the following communities: Stony Point, Haverstraw and its villages, Orangetown and its villages, Clarkstown and its village and Ramapo and many of its villages. The system strengthening provided by the transmission line improvements and the upgraded Tallman Substation, with its increased capacity, also has enabled the Company to fortify its distribution system in western Rockland County for the approaching summer 2008 period.

Orange County

O&R will complete the second phase of a $50-mllion electric service reliability improvement program, one of the largest single construction projects in its history, in June when it completes building 12 miles of new transmission line from the Westtown substation to the Port Jervis substation.

That $15.2 million project is the latest initiative in a project that includes upgrading the Shoemaker substation in Middletown, rebuilding transmission lines from there to Westtown and building a new substation in Westtown. The final phase of the project will be the rebuilding and expansion of the Port Jervis substation, which is scheduled for the summer of 2009.

The improvement package is designed to meet the area's increasing demand for safe and reliable energy by substantially upgrading the electric service between Westtown and Port Jervis and substantially improving the transmission backbone to southwestern Orange County. It will reduce the frequency and duration of service interruptions and set the stage for future economic growth and prosperity.

O&R also will double the size of the Monroe substation in time for summer's customary high electric demand this year. The current 25MVA transformer in the station will be replaced by June 15 with a 50 MVA transformer, the first unit of this size O&R has installed in Orange County.

That substation will be doubled in size again this fall with the addition of a second 50 MVA transformer and additional distribution circuits. The total cost of this project, which is designed to meet both current high electric demand and increasing future demand is $6.6 million.

New Jersey

O&R's wholly owned New Jersey subsidiary, Rockland Electric Company (RECO), has completed a $6.5-million service reliability improvement project that has expanded transmission capacity in Bergen County to meet the growing electricity demand in the Franklin Lakes and Oakland areas. These upgrades also will provide support to the distribution circuits that originate from the Rockland Electric Company's electric substations in Ramsey and Allendale.

RECO planned the project to meet growing demand for electricity and to improve the reliability of the electric infrastructure that serves its customers.

This construction project installed 6 1/2 miles of new transmission cable running from the South Mahwah substation, past the Darlington substation to the Franklin Lakes substation within the existing transmission line footprint. In addition, the project replaced 52 wooden poles that support that cable.

The communities directly affected by the transmission cable replacement project are:

• Borough of Franklin Lakes – 4,073 customers
• Borough of Oakland – 5,025
• Borough of Ramsey – 6,601
• Borough of Allendale – 2,476

Rockland Electric also installed a new distribution circuit in the Upper Saddle River substation, taking advantage of station capacity installed four years ago in anticipation of more growth. That $1 million project provides more flexibility in sharing high loads in the regional distribution network during summer peak electric demand.

And, Rockland Electric has completed a $500,000 addition to its Ringwood substation, designed to improve the efficiency of the transmission system.

Pike County

Pike County Light & Power, O&R's wholly owned Pennsylvania subsidiary, has constructed a new circuit along Route 209 down Pennsylvania Avenue in Matamoras to help improve electric service reliability in the area.

The $250,000 project replaced a circuit that exited at the rear of the Matamoras substation and was difficult for PCL&P crews to access for emergency repairs. With the new circuit in place, those access problems are resolved, and should shorten the duration of any future outages in that area.

System maintenance and the Infrared Inspection Program here have been supplemented with additional tree trimming which also aid in improving service reliability.

Over the past five years, PCL&P has invested over $2 million in projects to improve service reliability to customers in the Pike County communities of Westfall and Matamoras and set the stage for greater growth and prosperity.

Overall Electric Delivery System Initiatives

In terms of electric system maintenance, O&R relies on a series of tests, inspections and patrols on the ground and in the air to get a first-hand look at the system and to assess its health before the summer cooling season begins.

One such test protocol is the Infrared Inspection Program, which is performed prior to and during summer peak loading conditions. It identifies "hot spots" on electrical equipment and conductors that are operating above normal temperature limits and allows O&R's technicians to pro-actively correct those imminent failures. If left untreated, those conditions would eventually lead to unscheduled customer outages.

The electric system maintenance plan also addresses reliability data from the previous summer's experience to detect any areas that may require additional maintenance in the delivery system.

Tarpey said, "Each fall, after the peak demand days of summer, our engineers conduct an in-depth analysis of the electric system's performance. We identify where the system functioned well and where it can perform better. We scrutinize all the data thoroughly and then adjust where necessary or confirm that our maintenance programs and construction projects are continuing to meet our customers' requirements. Then, we again start our summer preparation work so we're ready for the season's high temperatures."

The maintenance plan is a living document that is adjusted to meet increased demand due to population growth or shift, growing industrial or commercial development or increased transmission capabilities.

O&R's distribution system tree-trimming program is a continuously on-going maintenance effort that addresses tree and vegetation conditions along more than 1,000 miles of O&R distribution circuits to help prevent tree interference with electrical lines, particularly during the summer's violent thunderstorms.

Special vegetation management attention is always given to O&R's 3,000 acres of transmission rights-of-way where the critical lines that bring bulk power into the delivery system are located. Driven by new industry standards resulting from lessons learned from the 2003 Blackout, this program has been modified to further assure that service on the transmission grid will not be interrupted by fast-growing trees.