trending Market Intelligence /marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/TrBxGNOqhnhjmtG8YbtFlg2 content esgSubNav
In This List

Con Edison, regulators grilled by lawmakers on NYC blackouts

Podcast

Next in Tech | Episode 49: Carbon reduction in cloud

Blog

Using ESG Analysis to Support a Sustainable Future

Research

US utility commissioners: Who they are and how they impact regulation

Blog

Q&A: Datacenters: Energy Hogs or Sustainability Helpers?


Con Edison, regulators grilled by lawmakers on NYC blackouts

At a public hearing held ostensibly on recent blackouts in Consolidated Edison Co. of New York Inc.'s service territory in New York City, state lawmakers questioned the utility's rate hike request and expressed further doubt on whether the utility can continue supplying reliable power to the city.

Con Edison President Timothy Cawley testified that recent outages, particularly in southeastern Brooklyn and Manhattan, did not result from neglected equipment, poor maintenance or a lack of grid investment. During the Sept. 3 joint hearing of the New York State Senate and Assembly's standing committees, Cawley defended the decision to preemptively shut off power, in order to contain the outage, to 30,000 customers in Brooklyn when feeder cables failed July 21 during high demand. Cawley told the lawmakers that Con Edison had no time to communicate the outage and said the customers left in the dark would have lost power regardless.

Questioned about the reliability of Con Edison's service as a utility, Cawley said southeastern Brooklyn, where the latest outage took place, is the most reliable area of the utility's service territory. He also reported that the undergrounding of a large part of its transmission system makes repairs more difficult because they take more time.

Deputy Majority Leader Sen. Mike Gianaris, a Democrat, raised the specter of giving Con Edison's territory over to a publicly owned entity and criticized investor-owned utilities, like Con Edison, for putting their shareholders ahead of their customers' interests. Citing reliability concerns, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, has threatened to revoke ConEd's state-issued operating license and place the private investor-owned utility under public ownership.

In the wake of the outages, other lawmakers at the hearing, including Democratic Sen. Julia Salazar, questioned Con Edison's requests to increase its rates by $485 million for its electricity division and by $210 million for its natural gas delivery system.

John Rhodes, chairman of the New York State Public Service Commission, updated lawmakers on the state regulators' investigation into both the Brooklyn outage and a five-hour blackout on July 13 that interrupted service to approximately 72,000 customers in Manhattan. Rhodes said the investigation into the immediate and underlying causes of the outages and Con Edison's preparedness, response and recovery to them is still ongoing and has no timeline.

Con Edison's internal investigation initially concluded that the July 13 power shortages were triggered after its W. 49th St. substation suffered a "significant electrical transmission disturbance." The outage then spread when both the primary and backup relay protection systems at the utility's W. 65th St. substation failed to contain it on a faulty 13,000-volt distribution cable.

In an Aug. 1 earnings presentation, Con Edison's parent, Consolidated Edison Inc., said it expects that July 13 blackout will reduce its third-quarter revenue by $5 million.

Rhodes said the PSC is also investigating the "sustained arc flash" from December 2018 that lit up the city's skyline and caused a local "transmission dip," which disrupted service at LaGuardia Airport. The PSC chair stressed that utilities will be held accountable for failing to perform as expected.