At a time when job losses continue to dominate the news, this recent Star-Ledger headline couldn’t have been more welcome: $956 million in utility projects to add 1,300 jobs.
This and similar headlines in other newspapers around the state appeared after New Jersey regulators approved increased spending on utility infrastructure projects as a means of creating new jobs and ensuring that electric and gas customers continue to benefit from safe, reliable service.
The decision by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities will put at least 1,300 additional people to work during the next two years to speed up projects the utilities would have done over a longer period.
These include replacing aging electric wires, network transformers and relays, as well as upgrading substation equipment. Cast iron and bare steel gas mains will be replaced with newer pipes more quickly than planned.
|
|
|
By doing these projects now, during a slow economy, we can take advantage of lower material costs. PSE&G alone will generate 900 employee and contractor positions and spend $694 million on these system upgrades. The investments will be recovered by a modest 75-cents-a-month addition to the typical electric and gas bill.
The benefits will begin immediately: People struggling to find stable, good-paying work will have a greater opportunity to provide for their families. Suppliers who sell everything from overhead electric wire to underground gas mains will move more goods – keeping their own production lines humming. And municipalities will pay less to illuminate their streets as PSE&G changes out 96,000 mercury-vapor street lights with models that use more efficient induction fluorescent technology. We are the first in the nation to offer the new “green” fixtures, which emit more light, last four times longer and cost less to operate than older models.
The accelerated infrastructure spending is just one way utilities – working with government -- can help boost the state’s economy. PSE&G has also proposed a $190 million Energy Efficiency Stimulus Program that would encourage conservation and create about 650 green jobs. It would expand an existing program that offers energy audits, programmable thermostats and other measures to residents in the state’s urban centers, as well as investment-grade audits to hospitals and businesses, providing additional jobs for contractors. The BPU is slated to rule on this proposal in June.
In the meantime, PSE&G is already hiring a number of new employees who are eager to don hard hats. Some begin training within the week. They’re ready to get to work…and do their part to help stimulate New Jersey’s economy.
What’s your view? Please let us know at Opinion@PSEG.com.
.pdf version |
email this page
