Con Edison Completes Major Project to Improve Electric Reliability on Staten Island
New Electric Cables Also Lower an Environmental Risk
Con Edison has completed a $200 million construction project that will increase electric service reliability in several neighborhoods on the east side of Staten Island.
The two new 138,000-volt, underground cables – also called feeders – run 4.6 miles across the island, from a substation in Travis on the west side to a substation on Dongan Hills Avenue on the east side.
The cables were placed in service overnight, replacing two older cables that were out of date in their design.
“Our Travis-to-Dongan Hills transmission line project will help us continue our long-standing record of providing safe, reliable service for our customers,” said Lance Becca, Con Edison’s vice president for Staten Island Electric Operations. “We constantly analyze our system to decide where investments will carry the greatest benefits for our customers. Then we make the upgrades.”
Becca said the company appreciates the work of New York City agencies that provided input into the project.
The Dongan Hills substation steps down the voltage and distributes the power to nearly 25,000 customers in parts of these neighborhoods: Dongan Hills, Eltingville, Bay Terrace, Oakwood, New Dorp and Lighthouse Hill.
The New York State Public Service Commission issues an annual report on the reliability of utility service. A commission metric is the number of customer outages divided by the number of customers. Con Edison’s 2022 number was .14, including outages from major storms.
At that rate, a typical customer would go seven years without losing power. The outage frequency for the rest of the state was 1.43, or 10 times higher.
The new cables offer several advantages, including an environmental one. They are encased in a conduit, making it less likely that an excavation contractor will strike them. Contractor hits on the old cables sometimes caused fluid to leak. The fluid, which is non-PCB, is like a mineral oil that keeps transmission cables cool.
That’s what happened in 2017 when one of the cables leaked fluid into a creek.
The old cables required up to 400 hours of labor a year to maintain. Eliminating that expense will save money for customers.
Con Edison is a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc. [NYSE: ED], one of the nation’s largest investor-owned energy companies, with approximately $15 billion in annual revenues and $66 billion in assets. The utility delivers electricity, natural gas and steam, and serves 3.6 million customers in New York City and Westchester County. Through Consolidated Edison Inc.’s subsidiary, Con Edison Clean Energy Businesses, the company is the second-largest owner of solar electric projects in North America.