Public Service Electric & Gas Co. (PSE&G), New Jersey’s oldest and largest gas and electric delivery public utility, has filed for a three-year, $2.54 billion extension of its Gas System Modernization Program (GSMP) with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities.
The proposal would continue the utility’s work to update its existing infrastructure to improve reliability and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by replacing old pipes with modern ones. PSE&G has about 3,000 miles of cast-iron mains, with an average age of 91 years — more than any other American gas utility. It is estimated that the program’s replacement of old gas mains would reduce carbon-dioxide emissions equivalent by more than 145,000 metric tons.
Through the first two phases of its GSMP program, PSE&G already reduced methane emissions by nearly a 250,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions equivalent from its system, compared with 2011 levels. GSMP III, which is planned to run f