New York Energy Week is kicking off its third year next month! The energy industry event series has quickly become a must-attend gathering for businesses, government leaders, financial players, legal professionals, members of the environmental community and citizens interested in the exciting ways energy production, transportation and consumption are evolving.

New York Energy Week’s mission is to support investment and collaboration among the diverse sectors of the energy industry and Con Edison is helping to represent the utility space in this effort as one of the main sponsors. Con Edison delivers power, natural gas and steam service to millions of residents in New York City and Westchester County.

The power sector in New York State is currently undergoing historic changes meant to support customer choice while fortifying the electrical grid in affordable and sustainable ways. Breaking Energy had an email conversation with Patrick McHugh, vice president, Engineering and Planning, at Con Edison to find out more about these changes, how the utility fits into the picture and why New York Energy Week is such an important series of events.

BE: What are some of Con Ed’s main objectives this year?

McHugh: We are striving to provide New Yorkers with reliable service while helping them to manage their usage and choose options such as distributed generation, energy efficiency, demand response and microgrids. We have an energy efficiency program for every customer and this year we are offering a new option for customers who cool their homes with central air conditioning systems. We call it “Bring Your Own Thermostat” – or BYOT – and it offers customers an $85 rebate for using certain thermostats from Energy Hub, Alarm.com, Nest and Honeywell. A customer with a Wi-Fi network can use the thermostat to control the central air system remotely with a tablet or smart phone.

We also encourage customers to consider clean energy options like solar energy. Our customers have completed nearly 5,000 solar projects that produce 70 megawatts of clean, renewable energy. We support solar energy and even put solar panels on our headquarters building here in Manhattan. Our panels generate 40 kilowatts.

BE: What is the most exciting aspect and/or opportunity associated with NY’s changing energy system? 

McHugh: The most exciting trend is that technology is making it possible for us to offer customers more options. It is clear that customers want more distributed generation, energy efficiency, resiliency and ability to manage their usage.

The New York State Public Service Commission has a proceeding called Reforming Energy Vision – or REV – to help customers get the services they and want and need. We are working with the Commission on the implementation of its REV vision and goals to benefit customers and encourage the development of new technologies and customer-based grid connections. We were pleased that the Commission, in an order issued in February, said that utilities will be the Distributed Services Platform Provider. You could say that that makes us the air traffic controller of the grid.

We believe it is important that the new system treat all customers fairly.

BE: What is one of your biggest challenges?

McHugh: We continue to make progress with a program to help customers in certain fast-growing neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens use less electricity while still getting the heating, lighting and cooling they need. We are developing an innovative portfolio of solutions such as demand response, storage, distributed generation and other options to help us meet the reliability need when demand for electricity is highest. Our goal is to reduce the need for electricity by up to 7 percent on peak summer days in 2016, 2017 and 2018. We are targeting the hours of 11 a.m. to midnight.

We are working with more than 2,900 small businesses and paying 100 percent of the costs of their energy-efficiency solutions. These improvements could reduce the need for power by more than 11 MW during many hours of the day. In December, we began a similar program for multi-family buildings and have worked with more than 500 customers. We anticipate a reduction of approximately 1 MW from these customers.

We believe that by working with customers instead of turning to the traditional utility solution, which is to build new infrastructure, we can defer the construction of a $1.2 billion substation. Since our operations are funded by rates, deferring the construction of the substation will save our customers money.

BE: What might the utility landscape in NY look like in 20 years?

McHugh: That is difficult to predict with real precision because it will depend on so many variables – how rapidly technology evolves, which technologies penetrate the market, customers’ need, economic trends, to name a few. But I think it is safe to say that customers will have more choices and tools to use energy more efficiently; solar panels will cover more roofs and the grid will be more resilient.

BE: Why is New York Energy Week important?

McHugh: At a time when technology is moving so quickly, customers are more sophisticated than ever, and customers’ needs are becoming more diverse and complex, it is important that our industry get input from experts from numerous sectors. New York Energy Week brings together top players in the utility, finance, legal, generation and government to discuss ideas on how the energy industry can best serve our customers and be a positive economic force for our state.

Breaking Energy is a New York Energy Week media partner and Managing Editor Jared Anderson is on the board of directors.