This week marks National Infrastructure Week, a nationwide event led by nonprofit United for Infrastructure that focuses on raising awareness about the importance of infrastructure and advocating for improvements. This week serves as an opportunity to highlight the fact that PECO works year-round to ensure its infrastructure is safe and reliable for all customers across the region.
Specific to Chester County, PECO is executing a multimillion-dollar investment to help prevent customer outages, modernize the electric grid, and reduce the impact of extreme weather on electric infrastructure through the remainder 2024.
PECO will invest approximately $9.3 billion during the next five years across its electric and natural gas systems to complete targeted system enhancements and corrective maintenance, invest in new equipment, inspect equipment, and perform necessary tree trimming and other vegetation management. Continued infrastructure investments will also help the company meet the growing energy demands of customers and support future growth and development.
These efforts include 62 electric reliability projects across Chester County in 2024, some of which include:
- Pennsbury Township, Kennett Township, and East Marlborough Township: Investing more than $14 million to enhance the local electric distribution system to meet current customer energy needs by retiring an older substation.
- East Fallowfield Township and Newlin Township: Investing $4.7 million to upgrade and enhance equipment to improve reliability, protect infrastructure from storm outages, and minimize customer impact.
- Valley Township, Coatesville, and West Brandywine Township: Investing $3.8 million to add system upgrades to help improve the customer experience.
“Our customers are the focus of everything we do, which is why we’re prioritizing this strategic investment plan to ensure safe and reliable service to better withstand extreme weather and pave the way for cleaner energy resources,” said Bill Patterer, PECO’s vice president of Projects and Contracts. “Modernizing our energy infrastructure is critical to meeting the needs of thousands of residential and business customers across Chester County.”
To further enhance reliability and ensure reliable power for customers, PECO actively installs specialized equipment, known as reclosers, that can automatically restore service or isolate damage. In 2023 alone, 127 new reclosers were installed, bringing the total to 3,472 systemwide. During the past six years, these reclosers have avoided approximately 6.89 million power interruptions for customers.
PECO’s significant infrastructure upgrades continue to pay off — in 2023, PECO customers experienced the lowest power outage rate in company history, with 86 percent of PECO customers experiencing zero or one outage. Even when outages could not be prevented, crews were able to safely restore power in just 90 minutes, on average.
The company’s investment in the region’s infrastructure goes hand-in-hand with an increased number of jobs available in southeastern Pennsylvania. PECO’s dedicated Workforce Development team works to enhance the employability of those who reside in the communities that it serves, with an emphasis on the underserved, by creating internal and external job opportunities.
