PHILADELPHIA (April 13, 2007) – PECO will spend more than $21.1 million in service reliability projects this year that will benefit roughly 50,000 Chester County customers.

Across southeastern Pennsylvania, PECO will invest more than $254 million in system upgrades and capital improvements. The full capital plan includes more than two-dozen major projects in Philadelphia and the suburbs, as well as customer-targeted reliability enhancement work, and increased automation for reduced outage duration. In addition, funds will be used for preventive maintenance such as circuit patrols along many of the company’s 2,200 distribution circuits using infrared imaging and right-of-way maintenance tree trimming.  PECO also will expand its use of lightning arrestors and animal guards to prevent a large number of weather and animal-related outages.

Locally, some of the larger PECO projects are:

• Installation of a new $2.2 million, 230 kilovolt (kV) capacitor bank at the Planebrook substation in Exton to meet the growing energy needs in East Whiteland and the surrounding areas, and upgrades to the Nottingham substation in East Nottingham.  Substations tap into high-voltage transmission lines fed from power plants to boost local supply and then convert that power into lower voltage for distribution to local communities.
• More than $7.4 million to trim trees along nearly 700 miles of aerial wire in nine Chester County towns—Franklin, Highland, Londonberry, London Grove, New London, North Coventry, Penn, West Fallowfield and West Sadsbury.  Such maintenance helps PECO prevent tree-related service interruptions—especially during storms—and reduce the length of the interruptions when they do occur. PECO has found that areas where tree clearance work was completed experience 39 percent fewer outages due to vegetation in the year after scheduled work.
• Replacement of more than 1,600 feet of underground gas lines in Coastesville and Phoenixville.
• Additionally, 27 local circuits have been targeted in PECO’s “top priority program” this year for reliability improvements that serve customers in East Bradford, East Fallowfield, East Goshen, East Whiteland, Franklin Township, Newlinville, Nottingham and Pocopson.  In this program, PECO targets 5-10 percent of its “under-performing” circuits for engineering analysis and enhancements.
  

“Our customers count on us to keep the lights on and the natural gas flowing, no matter if it’s 90 degrees or 9 degrees outside,” said Mary Jane Roache, PECO regional operations director.  “That is a responsibility that we take very seriously. These investments enable us to meet our customers’ expectations for safe, reliable energy service.”

PECO also has allotted $62 million in capital investments for upgrades and expansion of its suburban natural gas delivery network, an increase of $2 million over last year. Generally, the gas system upgrades get underway in the spring with projects slated for completion prior to the start of the next heating season. 

In recent years, PECO has decreased the duration of outages systemwide for all customers in three of the last four years. The shorter outage duration results from the increased use of technology on distribution circuits, better tools for dispatching field forces and improved response time by field personnel. Customers—on average—experienced only one interruption last year, placing the company in the top 25 percent of utilities nationwide.   

PECO serves 223,000 electric and 66,000 natural gas customers in Chester County, and operates service centers in Berwyn, Coatesville, Phoenixville, West Chester and West Grove.