PSEG Long Island Is Prepared for Summer 2026

(UNIONDALE, N.Y. – June 5, 2026) With summer arriving, PSEG Long Island is prepared for hurricane season and to meet peak electrical demand during extreme heat in the coming months. While PSEG Long Island cannot control the weather, and storms will cause outages, the company has incorporated numerous enhancements and upgrades to the electric grid, its systems and its storm processes, making it the most reliable overhead electric service provider in New York State.

“PSEG Long Island personnel evaluate the system, plan and make improvements all year round to ensure the grid is ready for summer’s extreme weather conditions. We continue to make the investments and improvements that we have been making since 2014 to deliver consistent, resilient power to our customers, today and in the future.” 

-   Michael Sullivan, Vice President of Electric Operations, PSEG Long Island

Electric infrastructure improvements
Across Long Island and the Rockaways, PSEG Long Island has prepared the electric infrastructure by focusing on substation, and transmission and distribution improvements, as well as by performing circuit and equipment inspections using helicopters and infrared technology.  

PSEG Long Island’s infrastructure improvements for summer 2026 include:

• Installing a new 69 kV underground transmission circuit between Belmont and Lake Success substations. This will provide additional electrical capacity that will serve Elmont and Floral Park residents, the growing demand at UBS Arena, the stores at Belmont Villages, and the constellation of shops and restaurants that will serve crowds enjoying the races at Belmont Park.
• Expanding the Holbrook substation to accommodate a second 138 kV generation tie for the Sunrise Wind Project, which is expected to provide approximately 900 MW of generation.
• Repairing the underground pipe type cable between Barrett and Valley Stream substation. This will enhance electrical resiliency and strengthen service reliability for residential customers in Long Beach, Oceanside and the Five Towns area.
• Replacing aging transformers at the Barrett and Bayport substations to enhance system resiliency and provide reliable electric service for the Long Beach and Fire Island communities, respectively.
• Installing a new 69kV underground transmission circuit between Bridgehampton and Buell substations. This will provide additional electrical headroom and support the growing demand in communities east of Riverhead.
• Installing or upgrading distribution feeder lines in the Central Islip, Arverne, and Syosset areas to accommodate load growth. These improvements will increase capacity to support the new load additions in each area.
• Replacing underground cables and network protector transformers at Dayton Towers in the Rockaway Beach area, improving reliability and mitigating future service interruptions to residential customers. 
• Substation distribution transformer and switchgear addition at Miller Place to support forecasted area load.  
• Upgrading two underground distribution circuits in the East Hampton area that have reached their maximum feeder capability from 4kV to 13kV to support local load growth.

Storm hardening
Since 2014, PSEG Long Island has storm hardened more than 1,400 miles of distribution circuits with stronger poles, stronger wire and narrower crossarms that more easily deflect falling tree limbs.

These investments have strengthened the system so that fewer customers experience outages and, when outages do occur, the duration is shorter, especially during extreme weather. From the first quarter of 2025 through the first quarter of 2026, the sections of circuits that are storm hardened have seen a 45% reduction in damage leading to outages compared to the rest of the distribution system.

To further improve reliability and maintain affordability this year, PSEG Long Island has utilized FEMA funding to install “automatic branch line reclosers” on many of its distribution circuits. By the time work concludes this fall, crews will have installed approximately 8,500 automatic branch line reclosers under the FEMA grant, bringing the total count of automatic branch line reclosers up to 10,000 units across the electrical system.
 
When an object, like a tree limb, makes contact with electrical lines, it can blow a fuse or cause a breaker to open, creating an outage that lasts until a crew can arrive, inspect the circuit and reclose the breaker. In many cases, the object that created the issue simply bounces clear of the lines without creating any lasting damage. Automatic branch line reclosers wait for less than a minute for the object to clear, and then they automatically re-energize the circuit. If the object is clear and there is no damage to the equipment, then customers have their power restored in less than five minutes and line crews can be dispatched more directly to jobs where they are needed.

To view an embeddable video about automatic branch line reclosers, click here.

Tree trimming
To further protect against storm damage to the energy grid, arborists from PSEG Long Island’s Tree Trimming program work throughout the year to identify and trim tree limbs in rights of way and along easements that could potentially cause outages during or after a storm. 

PSEG Long Island trims all 9,000 miles of distribution circuits and all 1,000 miles of transmission circuits every four years. The company has completed this cycle three times since 2014, for a total of more than 30,000 circuit miles trimmed in accordance with the industry best practice clearance standard. This standard preserves the health of the tree and directs future growth away from power lines. Since 2014, PSEG Long Island has removed more than 141,000 hazardous trees and/or large limbs along the distribution and transmission system, and identified, cut and treated more than 36,000 vine locations across Long Island and the Rockaways. 

PSEG Long Island also prepares its dedicated workforce for summer by conducting annual hurricane and tropical storm drills and employee training; by developing emergency summer operating plans; and by performing summer-peak reliability analyses to ensure there is sufficient capacity to meet electric demand on high-heat days.

To learn more about PSEG Long Island’s storm prep and restoration, visit psegliny.com/Outages/StormPrepandRestoration. 

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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.