JCP&L, the FirstEnergy utility serving northern and central New Jersey
Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) is one of the largest electric utilities in New Jersey, serving 1.2 million customers across 13 northern and central counties. The company is a subsidiary of FirstEnergy and is rolling out the EnergizeNJ smart grid program along with the multi-year New Jersey Reliability Improvement Project.
- The size of the JCP&L network and the regions it covers
- Why power outages happen on the New Jersey grid
- EnergizeNJ and the New Jersey Reliability Improvement Project
- How TripSaver devices and substation modernization are reshaping reliability
1.1 million customers from the Jersey Shore to the Pocono foothills
JCP&L covers a wide swath of northern and central New Jersey, from the Sussex County highlands and the New York suburbs to the Jersey Shore and the Pine Barrens. The territory mixes dense suburbs, coastal towns, agricultural areas and forested ridges.
- About 1.2 million customers across 13 New Jersey counties: Burlington, Essex, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Warren.
- Service territory spans the New York metro suburbs, the Jersey Shore and the Pine Barrens.
- Ocean County alone added nearly 30,000 residents between 2020 and 2024, driving more than 50 MW of new connection requests in 12 months.
- More than 80% drop in outages for nearly 16,500 customers in parts of Morris and Monmouth counties in 2025 versus 2024 thanks to targeted upgrades.
JCP&L is regulated by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) and is a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE), which serves more than six million customers across Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York.
Nor'easters, hurricanes and falling trees: why JCP&L lines go down
New Jersey is exposed to a wide range of weather risks, from nor'easters and tropical systems on the coast to ice storms and severe thunderstorms inland. Aging infrastructure on parts of the grid drives a baseline level of equipment-related outages.
Severe weather and nor'easters
Nor'easters, tropical storm remnants and powerful summer thunderstorms drive most large-scale outages on the JCP&L grid. Coastal areas in Monmouth and Ocean counties are exposed to storm surge and high winds.
Ice storms
Heavy ice on conductors and broken tree limbs cause some of the longest restoration events of the year, especially in the wooded northern counties of Sussex, Warren and Morris.
Trees and vegetation
Tree contact remains a recurring outage driver across the territory. JCP&L has expanded vegetation management as part of its reliability program, with thousands of miles of lines trimmed each year.
Aging infrastructure
Aging substations, transformers and conductors fail more often. Replacement is a primary focus of EnergizeNJ and the New Jersey Reliability Improvement Project.
The JCP&L Reliability Plus program
JCP&L is in the middle of one of the largest grid modernization programs in New Jersey history, combining state-approved infrastructure investment plans with a parallel reliability project on high-priority circuits.
JCP&L investment plan
EnergizeNJ: more than $202.5 million over three and a half years, approved by the BPU in April 2025.
New Jersey Reliability Improvement Project: $95 million for high-priority circuit upgrades, with up to 80% fewer outages on completed segments.
Ocean County: $108 million through 2028 to keep pace with population growth and rising demand.
Sussex County: $50.3 million substation upgrade in Franklin Borough.
More than 200 new TripSaver devices to be installed across the territory.
Energize365 (FirstEnergy): $28 billion of grid investment across the six-state footprint between 2025 and 2029.
Within EnergizeNJ, more than $20.4 million is dedicated to grid modernization (TripSaver II and remotely controlled devices), $128.9 million to system resiliency (circuit optimization, remote-controlled circuit ties) and the rest to substation modernization.
Automated reclosers and storm response coordination
TripSaver II devices
TripSaver II devices replace older solid fuses and automatically reenergize a line after a temporary fault, such as a tree branch bouncing off conductors. Customers avoid an outage instead of waiting for a crew to manually reset a fuse.
System resiliency and remote circuit ties
Remote-controlled circuit ties allow operators to instantly switch customers to neighboring circuits during a fault, drastically reducing the number of homes affected by any single damage point on the grid.
Substation modernization
Protection relays and substation control equipment are upgraded with modern devices that send richer telemetry to JCP&L's control centers, helping operators detect and isolate problems faster.
Targeted undergrounding
Selected high-priority circuits in Sussex and other counties are being moved underground or rebuilt with modern equipment to reduce exposure to wind, ice and falling trees.
JCP&L outage map and 24/7 customer service
JCP&L outage map
JCP&L publishes a public outage map updated in near real-time. Customers can search by address or zip code and follow estimated restoration times, the size of an outage and crew status.
Mobile app and alerts
The FirstEnergy mobile app gives access to the JCP&L outage map, lets customers report a power outage and pushes proactive SMS, email and app notifications when service is interrupted.
Bill assistance and energy efficiency
JCP&L runs energy efficiency rebates and partners with state programs (LIHEAP, NJ Comfort Partners, Universal Service Fund) to support income-eligible customers.
The main ISPs in northern New Jersey
For a wider view of how the U.S. electric grid works and why outages happen, see the U.S. power outage page. For internet outages across the same New Jersey footprint, the most common providers are Optimum, Xfinity and Verizon.