Hurricane season 2013: Con Ed to spend $2.2 billion to shore up grid

Con Edison unveiled $2.2 billion worth of improvements to its facilities in Westchester County and New York City on Tuesday to prepare for future Sandy-like storms as well as the summer, when electricity demand surges.

"Sandy caused incredible damage to our energy delivery systems, disrupting the lives of millions of New Yorkers," Con Edison chairman and CEO Kevin Burke said in a statement. "While we recognize that these weather events represent a 'new normal,' our goal through our investments is to lessen the hardships that violent weather causes for our customers."

The utility plans on spending $1 billion on "fortifying" transfer stations, power lines and other parts of the metro area's energy grid over the next four years, the statement said.

Most of the funds would go to low-lying areas of New York City that are especially prone to floods. But improvements to Westchester County's overhead electrical lines would be a significant part of the refurbishments, Con Ed spokesman D. Joy Faber said.

Ardsley Mayor Peter Porcino welcomed the news, though he also wondered if the investments would result in higher electricity rates in the future.

"Any steps that they are taking that are improving their readiness and preventing widespread outages is a good thing," Porcino said.

But he asked: "Who is paying for the cost of Sandy? Is it the ratepayers? Is it the shareholders of Con Ed? If we are paying for it, I think we should get a vote to determine what they are paying for."

Around 95 percent of Ardsley lost power for a week after superstorm Sandy late last year, Porcino said. Almost one million homes and businesses, or a third of Con Edison's customers, lost power during the storm.

Con Edison would install "smart switches" that prevent neighborhoods from losing power when a connection elsewhere is damaged, the statement said.

The devices would help prevent power outages that are similar to unplugging a single Christmas tree light and shutting off an entire string of bulbs, Faber said.

"If one part of the customers lose power, the switches are sectionalized where it doesn't take out a whole line or block of customers at the same time," she said.

New, stronger cables as well as stronger utility poles would also replace aging and damaged poles.

The new poles are 15 percent stronger and can withstand winds as strong as 110 mph, the statement said. The new wires would also detach more easily from homes, making them safer.

The utility plans to bury 30 miles of overhead lines in Westchester and New York City in 2015 and 2016 at a cost of $200 million, the statement said, adding that burying all 35,000 miles in the system would cost a whopping $60 billion.

In Westchester County especially, Faber said, the utility would also take a hard look at trees that are likely to bring down power lines. "Con Edison will conduct tree maintenance to reduce and minimize tree damage to the power lines," she said.

The utility would also spend $1.2 billion this year to boost the electrical system's capacity in the summer. Con Edison expects a peak demand of 13,200 megawatts this summer, with Westchester County using around 1,715 megawatts of that amount.

Faber said the Con Edison planned on unveiling more details about repairs and fortifications in the coming weeks during an event with Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino.

The county executive's communications director, Ned McCormack, said Astorino has been pressing the utility to make some of the changes it is proposing.

"They needed to make sure that where there were Band-Aids they were coming back and refitting things so they are stronger than before," McCormack said.

Executive director Gerald Norlander, of the Public Utility Law Project of New York, an Albany-base nonprofit watchdog group, said Con Edison's plans might be warranted, but he warned customers to be wary.

The federal government might cover some of the $2.2 billion in improvements but, under state law, Con Edison could eventually pass on the cost of much of the work to ratepayers, Norlander said.

"There is a huge liability hanging out there for customers but we don't know about it yet," he said.

The utility has already asked the state's Public Services Commission for a 3.3 percent rate increase next year in part to pay for an estimated $450 million in Sandy-related damages. The commission is now reviewing the proposal.