utility companies are searching for

better ways to bolster their equipment

against extreme weather and

even cyber attacks south jersey gas

recently shout out big bucks to upgrade

its pipeline

spending 69 million dollars on a new

pump station

what will it deliver jeannine donaldson

reports as part of our ongoing series

peril and promise the human stories of

climate change

and its solutions customer safety

and reliability is our number one

priority which is

why this project uh which is why we

started this project in the first place

so

allowing them to have safe reliable an

affordable delivery of

energy was our number one goal here

south jersey gas recently opened their

new century pump station

ensuring customers from vineland to

atlantic city will have gas in their

homes

even under extreme circumstances this

project

reduces the risk of gas supply

interruptions

caused by either extreme weather or

cyber threats or other issues which

could have an impact

on interstate pipelines this past year

an attack on the colonial pipeline left

millions of pumps empty

and in the winter thousands in texas

were left in the cold when freezing

temperatures

crippled their infrastructure leaving

people unable to cook or heat their

homes

a key takeaway here is resiliency and

reliability

right so and that's what a project

like this stands for it's always what

you want to have in your system

the upgrades made by south jersey guests

weren't because of those incidents

in fact they started construction in

january of 2018

to support about half of the company's

more than 400 000 customers

in the western area of the state as we

look at ways to improve the environment

and what have you

uh we're leaders as well we're looking

at

rng renewable natural gas um

opportunities for green hydrogen um

and you know you know we want the

support of the bpu

we have the support of the bpu in these

ventures and

um that we're partners with them and

ensuring as melissa said

you know we want the customer to to go

to their stove to

go to their thermostat and not worry

about whether

hey during a weather event is natural

gas going to be there

it's going to be there two 9 000

horsepower compressors will now ensure

the company has more control over the

system

the cost of the upgrade 69 million

dollars

we subscribe to a certain pressure uh

from our

our our vendor if that can't be met

um in this case here this this system

would technically kick on

and supply just a boost you know a

pressure boost

uh to our service territory towards the

east and um

it's an investment that you know we

could subscribe to increased

pressures uh but we wanted more control

over that um

we wanted to allow uh the system the the

gas pressure to come into our system and

on those peak shaving days

on those certain weather events or in

the event of

of an issue we have that control

to supply that constant pressure to our

customers

company president and ceo melissa orson

says they're always looking toward the

future

we're modernizing our infrastructure so

that

anything can flow through right for the

future and

we're happy that the administration is a

partner with us we share the same goals

we've recently announced

an ambitious goal of achieving carbon

neutral operations by 2040

and we will meet that goal and this is

just another

step in that towards that future i'm

janine donaldson for nj spotlight news

lead funding for paralymp promise is

provided by

dr p roy vagalos and diana t vagalos

major support is provided by the mark

haas foundation

and sue and edgar wachenheim iii and the

cheryl and philip milstein family

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