Requires electric public utilities to provide industrial portable power stations accessible to customers during certain power outages.
Summary
Assembly Bill 4509 would require electric public utilities in New Jersey to provide industrial portable power stations to customers in areas affected by a power outage lasting six hours or more. The bill defines an affected area as the geographic area that has lost service for at least six hours, and it defines an industrial portable power station as a large-scale lithium-ion battery capable of charging external devices. Utilities would have to supply one station for every 20 square miles impacted by the outage.
The stations must be delivered by the end of the sixth hour of the outage, placed in central locations accessible to customers, and their locations must be posted on the utility’s website within one hour of placement. The bill takes effect immediately and supplements Title 48 of the Revised Statutes, which governs public utilities.
Impact
This bill would add a new service obligation for electric public utilities during extended outages, creating a statutory requirement to deploy portable battery power stations in outage areas. It would affect utility emergency response planning, outage logistics, and public communications, while giving customers in affected areas a designated place to charge devices during prolonged service interruptions. The measure would supplement New Jersey’s public utility laws in Title 48 and apply statewide to electric utilities serving end users in the state.
Sentiment
No committee transcript or vote record is provided, so there is no documented legislative debate or recorded support/opposition to assess. Based on the bill text alone, the measure appears aimed at improving customer access to emergency power during outages and would likely be viewed as a consumer-service and resiliency proposal. Because it imposes operational duties on utilities, it may also draw scrutiny over feasibility and cost, but that is not reflected in the available record.
Contention
The main potential points of contention are likely to be the practicality and cost of requiring utilities to stage industrial portable power stations within six hours of an outage and at a rate tied to affected square mileage. Utilities may question whether the deployment timeline, geographic coverage formula, and website posting requirement are operationally realistic during large-scale outages. Customers and advocates, by contrast, would likely support the measure as a way to provide emergency charging access and improve outage response.