News
Malfunction at Substation Caused Two-County Power Failure
By John Burton
TINTON FALLS - A malfunction at the Jersey Shore Power and Light substation in the borough caused an electrical power failure that affected thousands throughout the county last Monday.
At approximately 4:40 p.m. the unspecified malfunction, or fault, occurred at the JCP&L substation, located at the Shafto and Wyckoff roads intersection on the Eatontown and Tinton Falls border causing the outage that went on for some customers for up to seven hours, on Tuesday said Peter Johner, a spokesman for JCP&L.
The actual cause of the outage is still under investigation, according to Johner.
The local substation generates approximately 230,000 volts and the disruption at this location "trickled down to our distribution substations that feed our customers," Johner said.
Roughly 71,000 customers from as far south as South Girt to the northern-east and -west of the county were affected, he said.
While power was returned for all customers by 12:04 on Tuesday morning, "It was sporadic throughout the evening," and power was turned on in stages.
The staggered return was necessary, Johner said because of the size of the substation and the number of distribution substations that feed into it, as well as to ensure safety for the technicians, customers and equipment.
The Tinton Falls location is one of four major substations in the area, with the others being in Red Bank, Neptune and Matawan, he said.
Despite the excessively hot weather, and the heightened demand that necessitates there has been no other significant power outage this summer. "We've been very, very fortunate this summer," he noted.
"The system held up very, very well this summer," Johner added.
