Unlike many of its utility holding company peers, Consolidated Edison’s near-term load growth expectations are driven by building and transportation electrification, not by data centers or large industrial loads.
In its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings report released Thursday, ConEd said an estimated 44% of the new business load requests it received between May 2024 and April 2025 were for electric vehicle charging or electric heat. Its densely populated electric service territory — covering most of New York City, plus several suburban counties in New York and New Jersey — saw 20 MW of EV fast-charging installations in 2025, up 18% from 2024.
New buildings connecting to its distribution grid needed 20% to 25% more power, it said, with major initiatives like the John F. Kennedy International Airport modernization project and Hunts Point Food Distribution Center’s redevelopment and electrification leading the way.
Con Edison Chairman and CEO Tim Cawley said in a statement that the company would invest “proactively” to simultaneously ensure reliability and support its home state’s ambitious clean energy goals as New Yorkers electrify energy-intensive end uses.
“Demand remains for a modern, resilient grid as customers continue to electrify their homes, businesses and vehicles,” Cawley said.
Con Ed projects two of its electric distribution utilities, Orange and Rockland Utilities, or O&R, and Consolidated Edison Co. of New York, or CECONY, will add 22 new substations through 2034. Those investments are a small part of the $72 billion the company plans to invest across its electric, gas and steam utilities over the next 10 years.
Nearly $14 billion of that investment will come in CECONY’s territory over the next three years following a rate case settlement with New York state regulators in January, the company said. About 70% of transmission and distribution lines in CECONY and O&R territory are underground, but Con Ed said additional investments are needed to shore up its grid against extreme weather and preserve what it called its “nation-leading reliability.”
Across all its utilities, Con Ed aims to grow its investment base by 8.6% annually through 2030. That represents a significant step up in investment from recent years. However, CECONY’s settlement last month allowed a far smaller rate increase than initially requested, a potentially bearish sign for future rate cases amid increased focus on affordability and an uncertain political climate in New York, analysts with the investment bank Jefferies said in a Monday note.
Distributed generation grows as reliability needs sharpen
Though CECONY is by far the largest Con Ed electric subsidiary by customer count, it owns relatively little of its own generation and purchases most of the electricity it delivers to customers through the New York Independent System Operator wholesale market.
CECONY also expects to face heightened reliability challenges beginning this summer and continuing through 2030, Con Ed said in a securities filing last week. NYISO raised similar concerns in a pair of reports last fall. In the filing, Con Ed said the increased reliability need would be driven by forecasted increases in peak demand, potential retirements of dispatchable generation, and uncertainty around the delivery timelines of major transmission and offshore wind projects.
Some of the near-term need will likely be met through continued growth of distributed generation, chiefly solar. CECONY and O&R had more than 1.1 GW of distribution-connected solar at the end of last year, up more than 10% from 2024.
In October, both utilities also asked New York regulators to support joint utility ownership of up to 1 GW per year of large-scale renewable generation to advance the state’s clean energy standard. Con Ed expects the state to weigh in on the proposal by May and issue a formal order sometime later, it said.
