Innovation

In a sense, one of Con Ed’s biggest innovations is that it’s a utility company that sees itself first and foremost as a public servant and secondly as a for-profit entity. There are many technological innovations related to affordable and clean energy that have been or are being implemented by Con Ed. These include smart meters, electric vehicle charging stations and high capacity storage batteries used in conjunction with the 2030 REV initiative.

Smart meters are a way for customers to easily see their energy usage, allowing them to make adjustments during higher energy consumption hours. Electric vehicle charging stations will be placed throughout the city in an attempt to clean the environment by normalizing the use of electric powered vehicles. Storage batteries allow consumers to receive discounts on their energy bill. These batteries will be charged throughout the day via solar panels and used to power the house. Any excess energy is purchased by Con Ed and placed into the city-wide energy grid.

Magnus states: “It’s about evolving, it’s about new technology, and it’s not just about status quo.”

Inspiration

Con Ed’s primary inspiration is to serve the public as safely, efficiently, and cost effectively as possible. Avoiding enormously costly infrastructure upgrades such as a projected Brooklyn substation, avoiding costly fines associated with prolonged outage times, designing a better electricity delivery system, rewarding better energy decisions, keeping energy affordable, reducing emissions, smoothing the transition into adoption of electric vehicles, adhering to REV and lessening the impact on the environment were also sources of inspiration.

Additionally, another source of inspiration came in the form of an external competition threat. In recent times several European utility companies expanded into the United States by buying up American utility companies. Starting in Ohio, they continued moving eastward and, in order to get money on their investment, would fire 1/3 of the workforce, leaving the remaining 2/3 to desperately create efficiencies within their companies so they could stay in business.

Magnus states: “We saw this coming towards us and we said let’s not get bought out, let’s create these efficiencies ourselves so that we are not desirable as a purchase, as a takeover, and we’ve been able to survive through all of it.”

Overall impact

Standard electricity meters don’t report when individual customers use electricity, all that’s known is the overall monthly usage. Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) or Smart meters, communicate, in real time, customer electricity usage to Con Ed. This is significant since the data collected can be used to design a better electricity system. Customers can be made aware of their usage as compared to their neighbors, or the average usage in their area, and this could help them make better energy decisions. In the longer term, this feedback system could probably be set up to incentivize off peak usage. For example, a customer may dry their clothes earlier in the day when electricity would potentially be made available below the typical rate, resulting in savings for the customer and less strain on the system during peak usage times.

Con Edison is in touch with electric vehicle manufacturers and foresees a rise in the adoption of electric vehicles which, due to improvements in technology, are becoming better competition to traditional vehicles. To help smooth this transition, Con Edison is investing heavily and is in the process of testing and ultimately placing publicly available electric vehicle charging stations throughout the city. High power fast chargers will be made available at those stations with charging speed different from your typical home charger (half an hour as opposed to hours). The transition to electric passenger vehicles, taxis, delivery vehicles, buses, school buses etc. can potentially all be affected.

Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) is an initiative that calls for reduced emissions and sets a goal of reaching 50% of New York’s electricity to come from renewable sources, such as solar and wind, by 2030. This presents some challenges, since New York peak solar hours are typically 10am – 3pm whereas peak usage is around 8pm. Storage systems continue to improve so ideally you’d store energy during peak solar hours and discharge at peak usage time resulting in less strain on the system and lower energy costs because you’d be producing energy locally.

Magnus states that “Con Edison is working with vendors to install a [house] battery that we’re going to control and what that means is we’re going to use solar [panels] to charge that battery during the day, we are then going to discharge that battery during the peak [electricity usage time] and what that’s going to do is flatten the load curve.”

Ultimately, using such flexible technology to supplement and enhance the existing system may prevent millions or even billions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades, including a substation in Brooklyn. The need for said substation has been forecasted for some time now and if built would not only come under fire by the community but would cost hundreds of millions of dollars that would be passed on to consumers.

Business benefit

The transition to smart meters benefits the business in the sense that Con Ed is more efficient because it can avoid hiring new meter readers, it can obtain significant usage data that will allow it to design a better delivery system, and ultimately it will be able to incentivize better user energy decisions that can potentially lessen strain on the system during peak times.

The electric vehicle charging stations benefit the business by creating additional revenue streams with fast charger rates possibly priced a little higher during busy times.

The high capacity storage batteries used in conjunction with the 2030 REV initiative benefits the business in the sense that millions or even billions of dollars in infrastructure upgrades can potentially be avoided by having this supplemental energy source on tap.

Since it sees itself as a public servant, Con Ed believes that what’s good for them also benefits the customer.

Magnus states it wonderfully: "I'm proud to be in that type of company where we have the best interest of the customer in our business model."

Social and environmental benefit

The social and environmental benefits are inestimable but include some of the following: reduced costs for customers, higher incentives for more responsible usage of energy, more convenience in the adoption of electric vehicles, reduced health and environmental impact due to fewer emissions associated with the operation of vehicles, less increases in energy bills because potentially less infrastructure upgrades will be necessary, reduced health and environmental impact associated with the production of electricity.

Interview

Kenneth Magnus, Department Manager of Staten Island Engineering