Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) has announced a $108 million investment through 2028 to strengthen and modernize the electric grid in rapidly growing Ocean County. The upgrades are intended to improve system reliability, reduce outage durations, and expand capacity as the county’s energy demand continues to rise.
Ocean County has added nearly 30,000 residents since 2020, according to U.S. Census estimates, and local businesses and developers have requested more than 50 megawatts of new electric service over the past year—enough to power roughly 50,000 homes.
“Ocean County is growing at a pace that traditional forecasting formulas can’t keep up with,” said Doug Mokoid, FirstEnergy’s President for New Jersey. “We’re taking a fresh approach to improving reliability now and meeting power demand for years to come.”
JCP&L plans to complete $21 million worth of upgrades in Ocean County this year. The work includes installing two new transformers and modernizing a third at a local substation, increasing the amount of electricity available to support new developments and speed up restoration efforts when outages occur.
Projects scheduled or underway include:
Lakewood: Replacement of more than three miles of power lines on South Hope Chapel Road, Brook Road, and Ocean Avenue with higher-capacity wire. Additional underground wiring is being installed in the Leisure Village community.
Jackson: Installation of larger wire along South Hope Chapel Road and Brewers Bridge Road, plus a new line near Six Flags Great Adventure. The upgrades will allow power to be rerouted more efficiently during outages and will add automated devices that can switch customers to unaffected lines.
Toms River: Relocation of equipment north of Route 37 to reduce vulnerability to outages and shorten repair times. New automated switching devices will improve reliability for customers in Leisure Village, southwestern Toms River, Manchester, and Lakehurst.
From 2026 to 2028, JCP&L will invest an additional $29 million in Ocean County as part of the New Jersey Reliability Improvement Project, which focuses on areas with frequent outages. Planned work includes installing stronger wires and poles, plus more protective and automatic transfer devices in Lakehurst, Manchester, Berkeley, and Lacey.
Another $58 million in county upgrades is planned under EnergizeNJ, a three-and-a-half–year grid modernization program approved by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities in April 2025. The program includes:
- Construction of new power lines to isolate outages
- Installation of more than 200 TripSaver devices that automatically restore service after temporary disruptions
- Additional automatic transfer devices
- Substation modernization and replacement of equipment at coastal stations prone to salt corrosion
Both the New Jersey Reliability Improvement Project and EnergizeNJ are components of Energize365, FirstEnergy’s long-term initiative to modernize and secure the region’s electric grid. FirstEnergy expects to invest $28 billion through the program between 2025 and 2029.
The company said the goal is to build a smarter, more resilient grid capable of supporting both current residents and future growth in one of New Jersey’s fastest-expanding counties.