Climate Week 2024: PSEG Long Island Announces Climate Change Resilience Plan

A full decade of planning and strengthening the electric infrastructure against extreme weather has increased reliability and resilience

(UNIONDALE, N.Y. – Sept. 26, 2024) Coinciding with Climate Week 2024, a time for conversation and awareness of climate change, PSEG Long Island and the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) have partnered to publish a proactive Climate Change Resilience Plan (CCRP) to address changes in weather patterns projected over the coming decades. To review the full Climate Change Resilience Plan, click here.

“From the day we started in 2014, PSEG Long Island has been making the improvements necessary to reduce and shorten outages when they do occur. We have already made great strides in reliability and resilience, and our new Climate Change Resiliency Plan is a road map that will keep addressing new risks that may be posed by climate change in the decades ahead.”

-  David Lyons, Interim President and COO, PSEG Long Island

“When you understand the science and the forecasts, you understand how important it is to have proper plans in place to protect our electrical infrastructure,” said John Rhodes, acting chief executive officer of LIPA. “Our focus remains steady – combatting the effects of climate change to protect our local communities. I want to thank both our staff at LIPA and our partners at PSEG Long Island for their work on this plan.”

A decade of PSEG Long Island’s storm hardening improvements
PSEG Long Island has spent a full decade strengthening the electric infrastructure against extreme weather, resulting in an electric grid that is more resilient than ever. Excluding catastrophic storms, the sections of circuits that have been storm-hardened have seen a 72% reduction in damage leading to outages in the past decade, compared with the rest of the distribution system.

From 2014 through 2020, approximately $730 million in federal funding has been used to complete storm hardening and reliability work on more than 1,000 miles of mainline distribution circuits on Long Island to address the weather impacts seen during Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Existing poles were replaced with stronger class poles installed deeper in the ground to resist the impact of severe wind. Cross-arms, pole hardware, and primary wire were also upgraded to a new storm hardening standard. Investments were also made in technology and emergency response process improvements.

Power On, a program that started in the spring of 2020, continues the work initiated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) program. Since the launch of Power On, more than 384 miles of the most vulnerable distribution mainline and branch line circuits on Long Island and in the Rockaways have been storm hardened with stronger poles and wire, and other system enhancing devices. 

For more storm hardening details, visit psegliny.com/inthecommunity/currentinitiatives/stormhardeningprojects.

Climate Change Resilience: Strengthening physical assets
Physical assets, such as poles, transformers, switches and lines, are a large focus of the CCRP. PSEG Long Island first consulted the results from the Climate Change Vulnerability Study (CCVS) and then identified existing adaptation measures it could expand upon and any gaps it would address with new measures. These adaptation measures help the system withstand adverse impacts of climate hazards through distribution and substation storm hardening measures and infrastructural improvements to strengthen assets and mitigate damage from extreme conditions.

Climate Change Resilience: Adapting existing planning, design, and operations practices
PSEG Long Island has also developed adaptation measures for existing planning, design and operations practices. Adaptation measures for these operations were also developed through the resilience strategy framework; each proposed project helps the operational area strengthen and resist, anticipate and absorb, respond and recover, or advance and adapt. 


Climate Change Resilience: Applying new technologies
In its resilience investment strategy, PSEG Long Island will also continue to incorporate the most up-to-date technology into its projects, including installing online monitoring systems for substation transformers, and utilizing smart meters to help evaluate solutions for low voltage issues during peak load days.


Building on the Climate Change Vulnerability Study
The Climate Change Resilience Plan is built upon the findings of the recent Climate Change Vulnerability Study published by PSEG Long Island and LIPA.

The study considered global climate projections through 2080. Data was downscaled to the Long Island service area using New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and Columbia University datasets. 

Among its many findings, the study considers risks associated with increases in average daily temperatures and more frequent, longer heat waves as the century progresses. It also considers greater asset exposure to coastal flooding due to rising sea levels, as well as risks associated with a modest increase in the maximum sustained wind speeds of tropical cyclones. 

The study and resulting resilience plan continue to keep PSEG Long Island and LIPA aligned with New York State’s with the investments of other major investor-owned utilities in the state. In February 2022, an update to the Public Service Law required major investor-owned electric utilities to conduct a CCVS and develop a CCRP. The Climate Action Council (CAC) Scoping Plan, released in December 2022, also recommended that LIPA, NYPA, and New York State’s municipal utilities undertake studies to identify vulnerability to climate change and establish resilience plans.

PSEG Long Island is committed to staying aligned with and integrating rapidly emerging standards and filings pertaining to sustainability and climate resilience into its practice. Although, LIPA is not subject to the same requirements as the investor-owned utilities, PSEG Long Island and LIPA have elected to conduct a CCVS and develop a CCRP that is largely in line with the efforts being undertaken by the State’s investor-owned electric utilities to further support state energy goals on Long Island. 

PHOTO CAPTION: PSEG Long Island employees confer in front of substation equipment that has been elevated as part of the company's ongoing efforts to address the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events.

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PSEG Long Island
PSEG Long Island operates the Long Island Power Authority’s transmission and distribution system under a long-term contract.  PSEG Long Island is a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (PSEG) (NYSE:PEG), a publicly traded diversified energy company.