Sussex Rural plans upgrades
SUSSEX BOROUGH — Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative is planning to making smart investments and improvements to deliver electricity that is affordable, reliable and cleaner for its members. the initiative is a territory-wide, aggressive plan to harden our system, making it more resilient and secure. These enhancements will improve power quality and reliability for our members.
Investments are being made in the following areas: reliability upgrades, transmission improvements, technology and system upgrades, and communications network upgrades. This plan enables the cooperative to spread the costs and maintenance across several years and take advantage of timely economic opportunities.
Below are some of the achievements accomplished during the year 2017:
Reliability ProjectsTechnology upgrade to include hourly voltage monitoring of strategically located meters (such as end of the line) and twice daily reads of all meters on the system.
Technology upgrade to include daily “blink” (momentary outages) presentation on system maps*
Upgraded 4,100 feet, 20 spans 3-phase primary conductor on Beaver Run Road, Lafayette.
Installed remote (SCADA) enabled three-phase recloser on Libertyville Road, Wantage.
Replaced 800 feet underground cable at various locations in development in Vernon
Line Visual inspection of entire 34.5kV transmission system (23 miles)
Complete visual line inspection of 5 feeders off two substations (Wykertown and Lake Neepaulin)
Oil Testing — All Substation Transformers, Substation Regulators, 34.5kV Line Reclosers
Oil testing checks for moisture or gas buildup within the device, catching failures before they happen
Infrared Camera Inspections of all Substations and on all 3-phase lines (approximately 125 miles)
Infrared cameras can show “hot spots” where connections could be failing, preventing future problems that could result in outages
Line Recloser Maintenance – 10 Reclosers
PolesPole Inspections — 680 poles (12 year inspection cycle)
Replacements — 43 pole replacements
Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative is the only Rural Electric Cooperative in the State of New Jersey. A locally owned and managed electric utility incorporated in the State of New Jersey in April of 1937. Under those articles of incorporation Sussex Rural Electric is owned by the members it serves.
Providing reliable electrical service to our members at the lowest possible cost for over 80 years, SREC’s service territory represents over 11,000 members in the Northwestern portion of Sussex County, New Jersey and a small portion of Orange County in New York State. SREC has a fifty year utility service contract with the U.S. Army to provide utility service at Picatinny Arsenal.
Sussex Rural Electric Cooperative was recently ranked one of the top Cooperatives in the United States of America with an American Customer Satisfaction Index score of 95.