NY Counts on Demand Management to Postpone $1 Billion Substation

A $200-million demand management program could help New York’s Consolidated Edison postpone a $1-billion investment in a new substation to serve energy needs in some parts of Brooklyn and Queens. Based on recent experience with summer heat waves, Con Ed is looking for strategies to control demand over a 12-hour peak period, from noon to midnight. “The utility is getting creative on many levels,” Tweed reports. “Some efficiency measures will be old-school, such as incentives to replace inefficient appliances and AC units. There will also be new building management systems, battery systems that can be tapped for hours at a time, and maybe even a few microgrids.”