ConEd finds load relief in demand response, efficiency trial
One of the country’s oldest electric utilities, Consolidated Edison, is working with one of the country’s broadest initiatives to reinvent the electric utility industry, New York State’s Reforming the Energy Vision, in a test project that could yield a blueprint for managing demand while significantly postponing the need to build new infrastructure.
Con Edison’s Brooklyn/Queens Demand Management trial has already shown preliminary results that are encouraging. It may also become a model for the transformation of the traditionally inner-directed utility model into a much more outward-oriented partnership that involves both third parties and customers.
At about the time that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the REV initiative, Con Edison was considering a major capital investment to meet the needs of part of its New York City service territory in Brooklyn and Queens.
Based on historical data and projected growth, Con Edison estimated that it would need to install a new substation for the area at a cost of more than $1 billion.
The timing was propitious.
REV is an ambitious energy agenda designed to spur clean energy development and efficiency. As part of REV, the New York State Public Service Commission is redesigning the regulatory landscape to meet those goals and transform the usual process of funding increased demand.
The BQDM program proposes to meet increased demand by cutting usage by cobbling together 52 megawatts of “customer-side” and “utility-side” demand solutions by the summer of 2018.
