ENABLING THE ENERGY TRANSITION
As part of our climate strategy and company strategy, we’re focused on our role in enabling the energy transition to a low-carbon future and supporting our customers’ evolving needs along the way. That includes anticipating and responding to customer expectations for reliable service, clean energy sources and increased control over their energy use and carbon footprint, as well as more sustainable alternatives in transportation, manufacturing and industrial processes.
Energize365 is a multi-year grid evolution program focused on transmission and distribution investments that will deliver the power our customers depend on today while also meeting the challenges of tomorrow. With planned investments of $26 billion between 2024 and 2028, FirstEnergy will forge a smarter, more secure grid that will meet and exceed reliability targets and accommodate electric vehicles, the electrification of homes and businesses and clean energy sources.
Customer-Focused Distribution Investments for Smarter Energy Use
We are delivering on our customer-focused strategy by building a more dynamic, smart and modern distribution system.
Across our service territory, we are working to strengthen our grid’s foundation by building a smarter communications network and replacing or upgrading aging equipment. That includes implementing an Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS), which is a software platform for distribution grid operations that has advanced application capabilities to help automate outage restoration and optimize performance. Together with smart meters, these tools help enable the distribution grid of the future.
Through our grid modernization plans, FirstEnergy customers have benefited from enhanced grid resiliency, improved reliability and reduced energy consumption. Additionally, with energy efficiency opportunities and innovative products and services customers can ultimately help lower their energy bills.
We expect to have installed smart meters for approximately 86% of our customers by 2028. Aside from enabling automated readings, these meters also help customers make more informed choices about their energy use. Customers with smart meters may even be eligible for a new, voluntary Time-Varying Rate (TVR) offer, allowing them to lower their energy costs by shifting or reducing their energy usage during peak times when electricity demand is the highest.
For additional information on our long-term plan for distribution investments, visit our Investor Factbook. For more information about how our investments are increasing reliability for customers, visit our Preparedness and Resilience page.
Transmission Investments for a Clean Energy Future
Energize365 builds on the key learnings and successes of Energizing the Future, FirstEnergy’s transmission investment initiative aimed at addressing aging infrastructure and plant retirements throughout the region. After a decade of focused investment through Energizing the Future, we achieved significant improvements in operating flexibility, enhanced performance and system security.
FirstEnergy continues to modernize our transmission assets, enhance operational capabilities and expand load capacity to make the grid more reliable and resilient. These strategic investments will help ensure our customers benefit from a stronger, smarter and more secure power grid for years to come.
These significant transmission investments also support our climate strategy by hardening the grid against increasingly violent storms, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by providing the flexibility needed for the integration of renewable energy resources. Across our service area, we're replacing or rebuilding existing lines and substations and adding new facilities to meet anticipated load growth and other operational challenges.
Our transmission investments are key to reliably serving our customers and integrating more renewables and distributed energy resources into our region’s electric grid – and enabling the carbon-neutral future our customers and communities want. We’re preparing for that future by:
- Investing in upgrades that ready grid operators to respond more swiftly to changing conditions and facilitate the reliable inclusion of smaller, distributed generating sources.
- Assessing the value of energy storage as a transmission asset to enable greater operational flexibility, increased protection against physical asset risks, and better support for increased renewables and distributed energy resources.
- Upgrading and modernizing our transmission system to provide customers with a stronger, smarter and more secure power grid for years to come.
- Exploring the use of distributed energy resources, such as solar and battery storage, at key substation locations as an alternative to fossil fuel-based backup generators for station service and to enhance restoration capabilities.
For additional information on our long-term vision for transmission investments, visit our Investor Factbook.
Measuring Reliability Performance
Our customers count on us to keep their energy flowing and address outages swiftly when they occur. Reliability metrics such as distribution System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) and Transmission Outage Frequency (TOF) are included in our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and are crucial to our pursuit of performance excellence.
SAIDI represents the average total duration of outage minutes in a year for each customer served, adjusted for major storms. Our KPI goals for SAIDI are in line with annual standards established by the state utility commissions and are set to challenge our operating companies to enhance performance. TOF measures the frequency of transmission line outages, excluding those that are scheduled, forced by emergency or operational. The KPI goals for TOF are determined through industry peer benchmarking.
We measure our performance on these metrics and share results with employees both monthly and annually. Please see our EESG data table for our trended reliability performance metrics.