A $53 million project to upgrade 19 miles of transmission lines in Monmouth County will help strengthen the electric grid and prevent or reduce the length of outages, Jersey Central Power & Light said Wednesday.

The work, which has already begun, replaces wires, poles and equipment that date back to the 1970s and will add redundancy to both lines, enhancing reliability for about 50,000 customers, the utility said.

"These upgrades to our lines and equipment will help to fortify our transmission system and ensure that we can continue to meet the current and future needs of the customers we serve in the Monmouth County area," said Jim Fakult, president of New Jersey operations for JCP&L's parent company FirstEnergy, in a statement.

JCP&L is upgrading nearly six miles of a 34.5-kilovolt power line running east from a substation in Middletown to a substation in Union Beach. A second set of wires is being installed along the line for redundancy and operational flexibility. The project will benefit 20,600 customers and is expected to be completed in May 2023.

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JCP&L also is replacing 13 miles of a 34.5-kilovolt line that runs northeast in Colts Neck to a substation in Matawan. Workers will reconfigure it so the line has two independent circuits, a job that is expected to be complete in December 2023. It will benefit 29,200 customers, the utility said.

The creation of two independent circuits on both lines allows JCP&L to keep customers in service if one is turned off for maintenance or is needed to provide a secondary source of power and additional capacity to serve customer demand, JCP&L said.

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David P. Willis: dwillis@gannettnj.com

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: JCP&L power outages should be reduced, prevented with $53M upgrade