More than 5,000 Northampton County companies and individuals are currently served by a recently reactivated electrical substation, which represents a major improvement to the area’s electricity infrastructure, according to FirstEnergy Pennsylvania.
Moore, Lehigh, East Allen, and Upper Nazareth townships, as well as Bath and Chapman boroughs, are served by the FirstEnergy Pennsylvania sMet-Ed division’s Klecknersville Substation. The facility, which replaced electricity lines that extended up to 20 miles across forested areas prone to outages, is a significant improvement over the previous service conditions.
John Hawkins, president of FirstEnergy Pennsylvania, stated in a news release that the substation, which has been in the works for five years, is a significant victory for the neighborhood. In addition to strengthening the grid for 5,400 Met-Ed customers, it also improves electric service for Palmer Township customers and lessens the strain on our Northwood Substation, particularly during times of high demand like the one we’ve had this scorching summer.
Shorter 5 to 10-mile power lines and smart grid technology that can remotely restore service, identify outage locations for quicker repairs, and automatically detect issues are characteristics of the new substation. Wildlife guards are an additional precaution against animal-related disruptions.
FirstEnergy’s larger Energize365 effort, a $28 billion investment program that will run from 2025 to 2029 and attempt to modernize the electric system throughout its service zone, includes the Klecknersville project.
Today, Met-Ed covers 3,300 square miles across eastern and southeast Pennsylvania, serving over 592,000 customers. FirstEnergy, the utility’s parent firm, runs about 24,000 miles of transmission lines that link the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions.
This story was produced and organized using generative AI using data from FirstEnergy Corp. Staff at lehighvalleylive.com evaluated and edited it.
