Con Edison Customers Shine During Climate Week; the Future for Green Energy Solutions is Bright

Con Edison’s Clean Energy Update for the second quarter, coinciding with Climate Week, highlights customers’ achievements in reducing their carbon footprint and advancing the transition to reliable, clean energy solutions.

Con Edison has provided customers with incentives for more than 8,400 electric vehicle chargers and more than 70,000 customer solar projects. Those solar arrays have the capacity to produce 622.6 megawatts of clean, renewable solar power. That’s more than 5 times the energy needed to power Times Square.

Customers in Queens lead the way, completing 23,852 solar projects through the second quarter of 2024. Westchester’s 12,617 projects have the capacity to generate the most power at 166.4 megawatts.

In Brooklyn, the company continues work on its Clean Energy Hub, an $810 million transmission substation that will be the first offshore wind interconnection point within the five boroughs. Creating more than 500 skilled labor jobs at peak construction, the Hub will be able to accommodate up to 1,500 megawatts or enough electricity to power 750,000 homes.

“During Climate Week and all year round, the women and men of Con Edison are sharing energy solutions with New Yorkers,” said Matt Ketschke, president of Con Edison. “We continue to build partnerships with communities, academics, industry leaders, policymakers, advocates, and other stakeholders and are pleased to serve as a resource for collaborating, innovating, problem solving and taking action to advance New York’s clean energy future.”

Con Edison’s employees and clean energy experts will participate in dozens of events across the region during climate week. The company is also proud to support efforts by its partners to promote climate awareness and award-winning solutions including: the Trust for Public Land, Green City Force, Urban Design Forum, New York Botanical Garden and more.

Con Edison Initiatives

Con Edison continues to advance projects aligned with its commitment to clean energy.

Reliable Clean City (RCC) Projects

In October, the company will host an official groundbreaking ceremony on the Reliable Clean City Idlewild Project, an indoor, storm hardened 138kV transmission substation which will allow additional Points of Interconnection for energy storage, future clean energy projects. It will also include a second substation. This $1.2 billion investment will modernize the electric grid, advance the clean energy transition, and create more than 400 skilled union labor jobs at peak-construction.

The nine-mile Goethals to Fox Hills Reliable Clean City transmission project is on track for completion this year. This project will meet the increasing energy needs of our customers.

Construction of the mile-long Gowanus to Greenwood Reliable Clean City transmission line continues. It will be the interconnection point for 810 megawatts of offshore wind from the Empire Wind project.

Customer Initiatives

Con Edison customers continue to choose solar, battery storage, electric vehicles and chargers, and clean heat options when making decisions about technologies that work best for them.

Solar Generation

Con Edison customers are capturing the sun’s energy at a record pace.

Staten Island was second only to Queens within 13,424 projects installed and 121.5 megawatts of capacity.

Battery Storage

Con Edison customers installed 53 megawatts of storage capacity through the second quarter. Westchester customers lead the region with 589 of the 653 battery storage projects with the capacity to store 14.2 megawatts.

The company has also installed 9.5 megawatts of utility-owned storage for a total storage capacity of 62.5 megawatts.

Con Edison continues to work with state and local partners to make it easier for customers to install solar and battery storage projects.

For customers with low incomes thinking of adding solar and/or battery storage the company’s Distributed Energy Resources Make Ready program offers incentives to cover all, or a portion of, utility-side upgrade costs for installing solar and/or an energy storage system.

Electric Vehicles & Charging

Con Edison’s PowerReady program has provided incentives nearly 8,000 Level 2 and 400 DC Fast chargers. Of the charging plugs installed, 3,021 EV chargers are in disadvantaged communities and 1,898 are publicly accessible.

Every EV that replaces a gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicle means cleaner air for local communities and less greenhouse gas emissions fueling climate change.

Con Edison has completed 116 fleet site assessments year-to-date. That more than doubled the assessments completed in the same time frame as last year. Site assessments are a free, preliminary service that provides a high-level desktop review of the utility-side work and timelines required to support a proposed EV project.

More than one third of the company’s internal combustion engine light-duty vehicle fleet has been replaced with electric vehicles. The company’s commitment is to have 80 percent of its light-duty fleet electrified by 2030 and 100 percent by 2035.

Clean Heat

Con Edison’s Clean Heat program more than doubled the number of projects acquired in the first quarter of this year. The program offers incentives for customers who replace their fossil-fuel powered HVAC systems and water heaters with heat pumps. Heat pumps move energy from the air or stored in the earth to provide heating and cooling.

In the first half of 2024, customers completed 4,240 heat pump projects with a $40 million investment including incentives and outreach efforts to build awareness and encourage customer adoption.

Of the 4,240 pumps installed, more than 4,150 were air source heat pumps. Ground source heat pumps were a distant second with 77 installations, followed by seven heat pump water heaters.

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 for the year-end 2023 and $68 billion in assets as of June 30, 2024. The utility delivers electricity, natural gas and steam, and serves 3.7 million customers in New York City and Westchester County. For financial, operations and customer service information, visit conEd.com.