Atlantic City Electric Plans Upgrade, Neighbors Have Opposing Views

CAPE MAY – Parts of the area along Elmira and Venice streets west of the Welcome Center have always been industrial sites of some form.
Since the turn of the 20th century, the location has housed the electric substation that serves all of the communities on Cape Island.
Atlantic City Electric held an open house Nov. 4, catered with coffee and buns, to give the public a glimpse of artists’ renderings of a proposed substation in the area.
The engineers and project leaders responded to questions. 
Neighbors who have invested in the gentrification of that area of the city have opposed the enlargement of the substation since the plans were announced months ago.
Reasons It’s Needed
Atlantic City Electric (ACE) stated that the substation is in need of additional redundancy and capacity. The utility is planning to place a second transformer on the site which holds one.
They also plan an upgrade to the control infrastructure at the site and a change in the distribution system putting fewer customers on feeders. 
That step would mean smaller groups of homes impacted by line outages.
Lastly, the project calls for breakers in the transmission lines that bring power to Cape Island from the larger substation at Rio Grande. Two transmissions lines feed the current substation, but they do not have the capability to automatically switch from one to the other when power on one line is interrupted.
All of this, the utility maintained, is driven by two major factors, a need for increased reliability, especially in the high use summer months, and an attempt to keep up with electrical demand along the shore as modest summer cottages give way to larger, often multifamily, summer homes.
The transmission infrastructure was upgraded in 2001, moving from the 23 kV to the current 69 kV power but the single transformer limits capacity to fully utilize the power.
The project does not call for any significant changes to the transmission system and thus does not portend the use of the large steel poles that became such an issue in Stone Harbor in 2016. Project leaders would not rule out the use of those poles, part of the utility’s standard for handing the 69 kV lines, at a future date.
Neighbors’ Concerns
Neighbors and others who oppose the project do not disagree with the goal of better reliability in electric power for the 7,100 customers on Cape Island communities. 
They strongly disagree with the building of what they term “a mammoth power station in downtown historic Cape May.”
Asking Cape May citizens to “Shout Out for Safety,” those in opposition to the project cite studies that allege that exposure to “elevated electromagnetic fields” are linked to cancers.
They point to persistent flooding in the area, arguing that the utility is asking for trouble when it proposes to put the enhanced substation in a flood zone.
Those against the project also note that the site is part of the evacuation route from the island and that construction over two seasons at the location risks impairing evacuation if one is necessary.
Adding to their list of concerns is a potential threat to Cape May’s status as a National Historic Landmark, although the nature of the threat is not spelled out given that the site currently hosts an electrical substation.
Also on the list of concerns in a handout provided by those in opposition to the project is the impact a larger substation would have on neighborhood property values in an area where some residents have recently invested in significant upgrades to the homes.
Neighbors went to the meeting at Congress Hall armed with pictures of the new substation that ACE recently built in Avalon. There, the transformers and control equipment are completely enclosed in a “home-like” structure intended to blend-in as well as possible with the residential neighborhood on 60th Street in Avalon.
Neighbors of the site in Cape May note that they are not getting the same treatment.
ACE responded to that last point by showing a new plan for a control building redesigned for the Elmira Street side of the site which is specifically aimed at responding to residents’ aesthetic concerns.
The transformers, however, will still be exposed. ACE representatives said the size and nature of the Cape May location did not offer the same options to the ACE designers.
What Comes Next
What those opposed to the project seek most is a new location. They want ACE to move the existing substation and build the enhanced station elsewhere.
The current site has hosted an electric substation for over 100 years. The utility is showing little interest in absorbing the additional costs of relocation.
All costs for any infrastructure enhancements are eventually born by the utility’s entire body of rate-paying customers.
The current schedule for the project has it beginning in the fall of 2018 with the completion of the project in May 2020.
The proposed schedule has work go on hiatus for the 2019 summer season.
ACE is still in the process of gaining all permissions and permits required for the project. The next stop in that process is a presentation to the city’s Historic Preservation Committee Nov. 20. Neighbors say they will be there to ensure that the commission hears their arguments.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.