Con Edison is celebrating their part in the transition to a clean energy future. The first quarter (Q1) report of 2024 highlights Con Edison customers increasing their rooftop solar capacity by 18%, adding 92 megawatts (MW) of solar capacity to the New York grid.
“The only way we achieve New York’s clean energy goals is if we all work together,” said Vicki Kuo, senior vice president for Con Edison Customer Energy Solutions. “We’re working closely with our customers in this energy transition, helping them to install solar panels and incentivizing energy-efficient upgrades to heating, lighting, and cooling. We are helping customers make decisions to conserve energy and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.”
Con Edison’s major infrastructure projects are on track, including the Brooklyn Clean Energy Hub, Reliable Clean City: Idlewild Substation, Goethals to Fox Hills and Gowanus to Greenwood projects, as well as the interconnection to bring offshore wind energy from the Empire Wind project.
The company continues to reduce methane emissions. It replaced or retired 17 miles of natural gas pipeline in Q1 and fully electrified three customers’ buildings in order to decommission two gas mains.
More than 67,000 solar projects now dot the rooftops of homes, supermarkets, office buildings, parking structures and yards with the capacity to produce 600.5 MW of power. In Q1, Queens customers lead the way with 22,874 installed solar projects. Staten Island followed with 13,096 projects installed. Westchester County customers topped solar generation capacity with 161.5 MW over Queens’ 157.3 MW. Staten Islanders have installed 117.3 MW of capacity.
Con Edison’s PowerReady program has provided incentives for more than 7,500 vehicle charge plugs since it began in 2020. Of the charging plugs installed, 2,700 EV chargers are in disadvantaged communities and 1,700 are publicly accessible. More than one quarter of the company’s internal combustion engine light-duty vehicle fleet has been replaced with electric vehicles, reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the conversion of 480 cars from gas to electric. The company also introduced its first fully electric Class 8 tractor, the Freightliner eCascadia, into its fleet.
Con Edison’s Clean Heat 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 carbon-free heating and cooling. In the first quarter of 2024, the company supported 1,376 heat pump installations with a $14 million investment on clean heat programs to support customer adoption.
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. This year Con Edison has applied $68 million in electric discounts and $13 million in gas discounts for its most vulnerable customers.
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