CL&P Investing $23 Million In Summer Preparations

BERLIN — The Connecticut Light and Power Company (CL&P) is in the final stages of a $23 million program to upgrade and strengthen its infrastructure across the state as the summer season — the time of greatest electricity consumption — approaches. CL&P’s preparations for the summer began in October 2005 and are done to reduce the likelihood of service interruptions for customers throughout Connecticut.

“It is far more efficient and cost-effective for us to make these proactive investments than just making repairs,” said Dana Louth, vice president for Energy Delivery Services at CL&P. “These improvements will decrease both the number and duration of outages across our system, providing our customers with greater reliability.”

“The $23 million investment in CL&P’s distribution system is part of a larger plan to inject $900 million in the company’s infrastructure from 2004 through 2007.

CL&P has taken a number of steps to prepare for the peak demand summer months and better serve its nearly 1.2 million customers in 149 cities and towns across Connecticut, including:

éInstalling additional substation transformers at 12 substations, which will help prevent larger-scale outages in the event of a transformer failure;

éConstructing a major new distribution substation in Westport, which will help serve peak loads and improve reliability to the town;

éPerforming special diagnostic inspections and follow-up maintenance on approximately 100 distribution substations where heavy loading is expected or where failure of a single piece of equipment would result in long interruptions to large numbers of customers;

éVerifying the integrity and efficiency of cooling equipment at all major substations to ensure CL&P equipment will be appropriately cooled to avoid equipment failures from overheating while carrying peak summer loads;

éUndertaking distribution system projects to increase circuit capacity — the ability to provide electricity to customers — in 25 communities;

éConducting infrared surveys of the nearly 400 miles of 345-kV transmission lines, 115-kV transmission lines (except for no-fly zones) and 239 substations across Connecticut. These surveys test and verify the integrity of the connections on major electrical delivery systems and help CL&P identify potential trouble spots;

éConducting foot patrols of all 345-kV transmission lines and 115-kV transmission lines to inspect electrical equipment and structures;

éInstalling new distribution capacitor banks and repairing existing capacitor banks to optimize power delivery systems for the summer peak across Connecticut;

éReviewing the expected peak loading on thousands of circuit protective devices across the state of Connecticut and upgrading those that might be undersized relative to expected loads;

éWorking with ISO New England, the operator of the regional power grid, to encourage large commercial and industrial customers to consider conservation and load management measures during times of peak demand;

éTesting voltage reduction programs to verify the ability to temporarily reduce demand, if necessary;

éReviewing and modifying operating procedures in consideration of peak summer loading conditions; and

éContinuing an aggressive educational and outreach effort to promote conservation measures across the state.

Many of these actions are focused on southwest Connecticut, an area of great concern for CL&P and the entire region. According to ISO New England, the transmission system in southwest Connecticut is presently inadequate to handle the growing electrical demand in the region. CL&P is moving forward with several projects that will upgrade the existing transmission system to meet the growing demand for electricity in that part of the state.