A sweltering holiday weekend left thousands of Jersey Shore residents without electricity, and New Jersey regulators are now pursuing penalties against the company at the center of the fallout.

What happened?

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities is advancing a $44.1 million fine against Jersey Central Power & Light for missing baseline reliability benchmarks in 2022, 2023, and 2024. It is also investigating how the company handled the Fourth of July weekend outages, according to the Asbury Park Press. JCP&L, a FirstEnergy subsidiary, serves 1.1 million customers across 13 counties.

Scrutiny escalated after storms on July 3, with winds of up to 80 mph knocking out power to about 300,000 customers, the Asbury Park Press reported. Three days later, roughly 40,000 customers were still without service.

That failure drew sharp criticism from Assemblyman Greg McGuckin, R-Ocean, who said the company "has still not solidified their system and hardened their system to deal with basic weather events."

Why does it matter?

Lakewood resident Shaul Sheinfeld described the ordeal plainly: "I will not elaborate over the inconvenience of not having electricity in 100 degrees. (S)uffice it to say that our family and neighbors did not have a comfortable weekend."

Federal data reviewed by the newspaper indicates JCP&L trails nearby utilities, with its customers enduring both more outages and longer ones than customers of Public Service Electric & Gas.

In 2024, federal data cited by the Asbury Park Press showed JCP&L customers averaging about 2.5 outages lasting more than three hours, while PSE&G customers averaged 0.6 outages lasting a little over an hour.

Brian Lipman, director for the Division of Rate Counsel, said regulators had been warning since before Superstorm Sandy that JCP&L was directing ratepayer money to its parent company instead of reinvesting enough in the grid. 

What's being done?

The NJ Board of Public Utilities originally proposed the penalty in April, the Asbury Park Press reported, calculating it at $25,000 for the first day of a violation and $50,000 for each additional day. By that measure, the total reached $44.1 million.

According to the Asbury Park Press, the board set August 12 as the deadline for public participation or intervention in the case.

Regulators have cited pandemic-related hiring and equipment procurement problems, but local officials say the push for accountability has dragged on too long. Assemblywoman Vicky Flynn, R-Monmouth, said, "I would just ask that they do it promptly so that maybe you could avoid what happened recently by allowing these things to linger."

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With more than $1 billion this year in investments, JCP&L spokesperson Chris Hoenig added, "Where recent upgrades are already in-service, the proof is there: when JCP&L invests, customers benefit."

At the same time, many representatives are considering legislation to improve customer service, including a bill that would give the state's utility board more enforcement power.

Frustrations remain high locally. Marlboro Mayor Jonathan Hornik said there has been "virtually no improvement," and Lipman said the proposed penalty sends a direct warning: "It's the strongest message yet that business-as-usual is not going to cut it."

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