Operational Excellence
Climate Resilience
CECONY invested $1 billion in Fortify the Future, a program to protect our energy-delivery systems and customers from extreme weather events. O&R spent $12 million on storm hardening last year, enhancing system resiliency with distribution automation, strategic undergrounding of critical circuits, and transmission line structure replacement. In addition, taller, stronger poles were installed at key locations to fortify the infrastructure. The upgrades to CECONY’s overhead delivery system included stronger wiring, poles that can withstand 110-mile-per-hour winds, and sophisticated smart switches that limit outages. To protect our underground delivery system from flooding, we built walls at substations and other important locations, raised equipment and installed submersible equipment. We split two networks in Lower Manhattan, so that we can take customers near the coast out of service while keeping power flowing to inland customers. For restoring power to 1.1 million customers after Superstorm Sandy and the punishing Nor’easter that followed, CECONY received an Emergency Response Excellence Award from Davies Consulting. The enhancements to our systems have helped prevent hundreds of thousands of outages and keep the public safe.
To address future climate change risks, the company is conducting a study to understand the vulnerability of our energy systems to climate change and identify adaptation options to enhance system resiliency. The study is using the latest available climate science to project future weather scenarios for our service territory to the year 2080. The weather scenario projections will be used to evaluate potential impacts to the company’s electric, gas and steam systems. Based on these impacts, we will review adaptation options such as revisions to design standards and operating processes. A risk mitigation plan will then be created with a portfolio of solutions to provide the required resiliency.
We have completed the analysis of ambient temperature on our assets and processes. By the end of 2018, we plan to have completed the analysis of humidity, precipitation and sea level rise.