NJ TRANSITGRID Wins Another Award!
BEM’s Harold Olarte (left) and Mittul Patel (right) stand with NJ TRANSIT’s Eric Daleo (second from left), and John Geitner (second from right) at the NJ Alliance for Action – Distinguished Engineering Awards ceremony in Jamesburg, NJ.
On October 06, 2021, NJ TRANSIT representatives, Mr. Eric Daleo, Senior Vice President, and Mr. John Geitner, Senior Director and BEM Systems, Inc. (BEM) attended the NJ Alliance for Action – Distinguished Engineering Awards ceremony in Jamesburg, NJ to accept the award for the NJ TRANSITGRID Microgrid Central Facility Project, Kearny, Jersey City, Hoboken, Bayonne, Union City, and Weehawken. The annual award ceremony was hosted by the NJ Alliance for Action to recognize and celebrate engineering innovation – creating jobs, protecting the environment, and improving lives.
This first-of-its-kind microgrid for mass transit (commuter rail and light rail) will provide a resilient energy supply to support limited service to a targeted portion of rail infrastructure in Northern New Jersey and New York City, specifically along portions of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor (NEC), NJ TRANSIT’s Morris & Essex (M&E) Line and Hudson Bergen Light Rail (HBLR). Due to climate change, there is an increase in both intensity and frequency of severe weather events, which increases the regions’ public transportation infrastructure’ s vulnerability to power outages. This project will supply electricity during future extreme weather events and national emergencies. The Project design includes future integration of carbon neutral power generation options to meet the needs of New Jersey’s 2019 Energy Master Plan of 100% clean energy by 2050.
BEM is the environmental program and project manager for the microgrid Project who assisted NJ TRANSIT with grant application preparation and led the preparation of the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process for National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance for the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). BEM has administered the public outreach from the initial scoping process through the issuance of the FTA Region 2’s first-ever Combined Final EIS and Record of Decision (ROD). BEM ensured requirements for a combined document were achieved by carefully evaluating the Preferred Alternative under the Draft EIS phase to accurately document the Project’s environmental impacts prior to public review of the Draft EIS.
