July 12, 2018 – In his NJSPOTLIGHT article on the New Jersey’s Energy Master Plan (see link below), Tom Johnson wrote:
“What will remain priorities? Like the current plan, the new blueprint will encourage the state’s utilities to invest in modernizing the power grid, reducing the frequency and extended outages that have plagued customers in recent years, and restoring service more quickly when it is lost. The new plan also will aim to keep utility bills affordable — no small challenge, given the costs to be imposed on ratepayers to replace an aging power grid and to fund the administration’s ambitious clean energy goals. Those costs will run into billions of dollars added on to customers’ bills.”
There is a big push for clean renewable energy. We are very supportive of these initiatives. However, it is important to note that regardless how power is generated, these energy sources must still be connected to consumers through the local distribution system. The under-investment of the local distribution system and the lack of proper maintenance by at least one utility company have contributed significantly to almost all of the power outages we frequently experienced. It will be interesting to see how all this shakes out as the 2019 Energy Master Plan Committee moves forward.
