Con Ed Announces $100M Plan for Storm Protection

Con Edison plans to invest $100 million over the next four years in Westchester County, N.Y., to fortify its overhead electric-delivery system against severe storms. This announcement is part of the city’s efforts to improve operations, after two storms in March led to power outages in the service area, with some without power for as long as 10 days, reports WAMC.

The utility plans to seek earlier access to contractors and mutual aid crews to help with repairs. As reported by WAMC, Con Ed will have enough provisions from the West Coast, as it is unlikely that severe weather events will affect both coasts simultaneously. Under this plan, Con Ed is prepared to lease about 100 bucket trucks for these mutual aid crews.

In addition to these investments, the utility has a pilot program to remove hazardous trees on private property. Virtually all of the outages during the March storms were the result of fallen trees, and the fallen trees often block streets, preventing the utility from responding with trucks.

Through this pilot, Con Edison has offered 300 trees on private property that posed an imminent hazard and is offering to remove them at no cost to the property owner. It is also making improvements to storm staffing and customer information flow.