Con Edison Invests in Infrastructure to Meet Increased Summer Energy Demand

Con Edison has invested $2.35 billion in its electric delivery system since last summer to help ensure reliable, resilient service this summer when customers’ need for power is greatest.

The company is preparing for the increased demand for power as New Yorkers rely on their air conditioners to keep their homes and business cool and comfortable. Con Edison’s meteorologists are forecasting a particularly humid summer, which can drive air conditioning usage.

Con Edison has multiple tools, from overhead switches that help limit outages to smart meters that provide the customer and the company’s operators information in near real time, as well as sensors in manholes that notify the company when a cable may be getting hot. These tools, alongside Con Edison’s robust workforce, help keep the grid ready and customers in service.

In addition, the company is committed to helping customers manage their energy usage as temperatures rise. Conserving energy during peak demand times - typically the afternoon and early evening hours on the hottest days of summer - helps Con Edison maintain reliable service and saves money for customers.

Con Edison also offers energy efficiency programs and incentives, including rebates for smart thermostats and up to $4,000 for home upgrades like sealing and insulation to help manage costs.

“Our ongoing investments help ensure safe and reliable service, even as the days get hotter for longer and the demand for air conditioning and high temperatures can stress our equipment,” said Matthew Ketschke, the president of Con Edison. "We use data and technology to pinpoint where upgrades will benefit our customers the most, and our highly skilled workforce brings those improvements to life.”

Reliable energy service is essential for Con Edison’s customers. The company powers vital transportation networks, including a 24-7 subway system, world-class hospitals, important government institutions and thousands of small neighborhood businesses.

Infrastructure upgrades to date that help keep the region energized include the installation of new substation equipment, 46 underground and 79 overhead transformers, 342 spans of underground and overhead feeder cables, 259 spans of open wire, and 113 poles.

These projects benefit residential and business customers from the northernmost part of Con Edison’s service area in Westchester County to Staten Island’s South Shore.

More specifically:

Bronx
Con Edison invested $12 million in the Bronx to install more than 60 sections of primary cable and new switching technology to improve capacity, resiliency and reliability.

Brooklyn
The company invested $25 million in the Williamsburg, Fort Greene and Greenpoint communities on new cable feeders to enhance reliability and support increasing needs for power.

Manhattan
Con Edison recently completed an $18 million project to create a new electric network and increase capacity in the Midtown West area. The company also invested more than $13 million in Harlem and Yorkville to increase capacity and reliability with more than five miles of new underground cable, new transformers, and new switching to diversify sources of power.

Queens
The investments included $12.5 million in the Ridgewood and Maspeth areas, strengthening our system in an area where the need for power is projected to grow.

Staten Island
The company is working on numerous projects on Staten Island. They include $10.4 million in the northern part of the borough in Westerleigh, Concord, and Rosebank to replace poles, 157 spans of wire, and place a mile of overhead circuits underground to protect them from storm damage.

In the south, the company is investing $10.7 million in Eltingville and Richmondtown to replace poles, and three miles of aerial cable, along with installing switches to improve reliability.

Westchester County
The spending includes more than $23 million on reliability improvements, including technology to give Con Edison operators information about system conditions in real time. That can help avoid outages and speed restoration if customers do lose service.

A typical New York City residential customer using 350 kilowatt hours per month can expect an average monthly bill of $141.28 from June to September 2025, an increase of 2.7 percent over last summer.

A typical Westchester residential customer using 500 kilowatt hours per month can expect a 1.1 percent decrease and an average monthly bill of $178.76 during the summer months.

A typical New York City commercial customer using 10,800 kilowatt hours per month with a peak demand of 30 kilowatts can expect a 9.8 percent increase over last year and an average monthly bill of $3,291.62.

A New York City small business customer using 583 kilowatt hours will see an increase of 8.1 percent to $267.51.

Bills include taxes and fees, delivery charges, which increased in January under a rate plan the New York State Public Service Commission approved in July 2023, and supply charges. Con Edison buys energy supply on the wholesale markets and provides it to customers at the same prices it pays. When energy costs go up, the customer pays more; when costs drop, the customer benefits.

The best way for customers to save on their bills is to manage their usage. Customers who conserve energy at times of particularly high demand help Con Edison keep service reliable while also saving money and helping the environment:

• Con Edison encourages customers to use energy wisely and consider enrolling in an energy efficiency program to save. The company offers programs for every type of customer – residential, small business, large commercial and low-income customers.
• Con Edison offers residential customers incentives for clean heating and cooling technology. Con Edison also offers residential customers an $85 rebate for enrolling their eligible smart thermostat in the Smart Usage Rewards program.
• The rebates and incentives for income-eligible customers include discounts on efficient equipment.
• The company’s Budget Billing program allows customers to spread payments out across the year, avoiding spikes. This is especially helpful when energy usage ticks up.
• The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority will cover the cost of an air conditioning unit and installation for eligible low-income customers whose households include at least one person susceptible to extreme heat and humidity. Apply for Cooling Assistance.

Additionally, Con Edison is acutely aware of the affordability issue and offers programs to help customers.

• Customers who receive benefits from certain government programs may be eligible for discounts on their bills.
• Con Edison offers payment plans for customers who are struggling to pay. The plans allow a customer to pay off arrears over time, instead of all at once.
• Customers can get payment extensions of up to 10 days.

The demand for power for Con Edison customers last year reached 11,822 megawatts on July 16. For 2025, the company forecasts a peak of 12,610 megawatts. (A megawatt is 1 million watts.)

The record is 13,322 megawatts during a heat wave on July 19, 2013. The demand for power has not approached that amount since then, largely due to the company’s energy efficiency and smart usage programs and customer adoption of solar energy and other distributed resources.

Con Edison has technologies and procedures to keep service reliable during the summer months when customers’ need for air conditioning increases, potentially placing stress on electric delivery infrastructure.

Under extreme conditions, the company’s operators can open switches on 4-kilovolt overhead systems in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx to prevent power from shifting from failed cables onto cables that remain in service. That prevents the cables still in service from becoming overloaded.

Operators can use the smart meter system to shut off the flow of power in a targeted way when delivery equipment in an area is under stress. The emergency shutoff would affect residential customers served by the isolated equipment.

These temporary interruptions would prevent larger outages that would take longer to restore. In this scenario, most commercial customers would remain in service.

Critical customers such as hospitals, fire stations and police stations, would also remain in service. These interruptions would not affect households that have registered as having a resident who depends on life-support equipment.

Con Edison can also lower voltage to an area by 5 percent or 8 percent to take stress of the electric delivery equipment.

Enrolling in the LSE program is convenient via My Account, by downloading the life-support equipment form, and returning it to Con Edison, or by calling 1-877-582-6633.

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 $71 billion in assets. 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.