Power Upgrade Planned For OC

OCEAN CITY -- Delmarva Power this week announced a major high-voltage transmission line installation project is scheduled to begin in mid-town Ocean City early next year along Coastal Highway.

The $5 million project is designed to improve electric service reliability in Ocean City and throughout Worcester County and Sussex County in Delaware. The proposal includes rebuilding an existing transmission high-voltage transmission between 41st and 85th streets.

Work on the 69,000-volt transmission line involves replacing as many as 90 wooden electric poles, many of which have been in service for over 40 years. The existing wooden poles will be replaced with galvanized steel poles that require much less maintenance than the existing wooden poles.

The major transmission line reconstruction project will take several months, but a plan is in place to minimize impacts on traffic along Coastal Highway, particularly during the summer season. The project is tentatively scheduled to begin in February and crews will work as far as they can go before the season arrives. The project will then be suspended from May through September next year and will resume next October. The project is expected to be completed by next December.

“We will do everything possible to avoid creating noise and traffic disruptions during construction,” said Delmarva Power Region Vice President John Allen this week. “We won’t be doing any work during the busy summer tourist season and we will work with officials from the town of Ocean City, the Maryland State Highway Administration and other utilities to ensure the project is completed in a safe and timely manner.”

Delmarva Power’s latest transmission line project scheduled for Ocean City early next year is part of a larger effort by the company to upgrade its facilities across the region in the interest of improving reliability in Lower Delaware and across Maryland’s Eastern Shore. In May, Delmarva Power completed a major project that included building a new high-voltage transmission line between Millsboro and Bishopville. The 138,000-volt line was built along 12 miles of an existing right-of-way from Delaware to northern Worcester County.

“Engineering studies indicate the new line will help avoid extended power outages for many customers in Sussex and Worcester counties should there be a major problem with the current transmission network that links Salisbury and Ocean City in Maryland and Bethany Beach in Delaware,” said Allen.