A new power substation for the Littlestown area, which the Evening Sun previously reported had been planned to avoid outages – like the lengthy one the area experienced this year – is underway and will be energized prior to next summer, Met-Ed announced.
In a press release issued on Aug. 27, 2025, FirstEnergy, the parent company of Met-Ed, shared that the East Germantown-Germantown Reliability Project is now underway and is set to be completed by the end of March 2026.
That project, according to prior application documents, seeks to avoid days-long blackouts like the area had experienced between June 22 through June 26, 2025, when a “major failure” of the transformer at the existing Germantown substation occurred during the summer’s first heatwave.
Previously reported Littlestown power supply issues ID’d in 2020, but planned new substation still a year away
Dark houses are bathed in red light from a generator-powered traffic signal as a power outage in the Littlestown area continues into its third day, early Tuesday, June 24, 2025, in Littlestown Borough.
Shortly after the Littlestown area blackout, officials had previously given a “third-quarter 2026” timeframe for the project’s estimated completion.
The project includes a new power substation off of Basehoar Road northeast of Littlestown, and a new 115-kilovolt transmission line, which the company said “will enhance service reliability and support future growth in Adams County.”
Around 2,300 residents in the Littlestown area will benefit from the project, according to Met-Ed, which said the project was “built to grow with the community, so as more homes and businesses come online, the system can keep up.”
A field and transmission lines sit on the site near where the planned “Germantown East” Met-Ed substation will eventually be built, Wednesday, June 25, 2025, near Littlestown.
In the news release, the president of FirstEnergy, John Hawkins, made note of the 2025 Littlestown outage.
“Earlier this summer, we saw how high temperatures and increased demand can strain the system and lead to outages,” Hawkins said in the release.
“By adding a second power source and improving switching capabilities, we’re building a stronger grid that can better handle peak loads and reduce the frequency and duration of outages,” he added.
A diagram from Met-Ed, provided as part of a Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission filing, shows the power distribution system from the Germantown Substation that provides power to the Littlestown area, along with the coverage of a planned new “Germantown East” Substation
According to the release, the project is part of the company’s “Energize365” initiative, which is a $28 billion investment to modernize the electric grid between 2025 and 2029.
Met-Ed, one of several electric utilities under FirstEnergy, serves around 592,000 customers within 3,300 square miles of eastern and southeastern Pennsylvania, the release said.
Project first identified in 2020
The need for the new substation was first identified to the state in 2020, with documents stating that the existing Germantown substation near Littlestown had exceeded the “transformer overload and moderate loss of life rating” in 2018.
In testimony given as part of a 2024 application for the construction of the new Germantown East transmission lines, FirstEnergy officials expressed concern over the existing power infrastructure in the Littlestown area, describing a potential several-day outage scenario for around 3,200 customers.
Large pieces of transmission towers, intended for a distribution line project, are seen within the Germantown East substation along Baltimore Pike on the fourth day of a widespread power outage which came during a heat wave, Wednesday, June 25, 2025, near Littlestown.
At the heart of that issue was a lack of switching capability in the area, the application outlined, with no redundant distribution lines that “would be able to pick up the existing customer load on this substation” in the event of a transformer failure at the Germantown substation.
Without distribution lines to pick up the load during an outage, the company wrote in the application, “the distribution system is unable to provide emergency switching for unplanned outages.”
In order to reduce the chance of such a failure and increase capacity, the engineer said in the testimony that a second substation, Germantown East, would need to be built northeast of Littlestown.
Harrison Jones is a reporter for the Evening Sun covering Hanover and Adams County. Reach him at hjones@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Hanover Evening Sun: Littlestown, Pa. power station planned to be energized by April 2026
