Safety & Environment
Oil-to-Gas Conversions
In 2020 Con Edison converted 64 buildings from heavy heating oil to gas. Since the start of our conversion program in 2011, we have converted more than 4,600 large buildings burning heavy heating oil; we also converted more than 3,800 customers from No. 2 grade oil. The company’s conversions since 2011 kept more than 582 tons of fine particulate matter from the air in 2020, which is a significant impact on air quality within the New York City portion of our service territory. New York City has the cleanest air in five decades, largely as a result of these building conversions. While we’ve completed our Area Growth marketing and construction program, we continue to see customer-driven requests in converting from oil of all grades.
In 2020, O&R converted 75 customers from various grades of heating oil to natural gas. O&R has since concluded its gas expansion program. Currently, for customers who have requested new natural gas service or upgrades, O&R will both support and serve these customers with natural gas while also providing incentives to customers to install non-pipe solutions and alternatives, such as heat pumps.
We will expand efforts to reduce the use of fossil fuels for heating through energy efficiency, investing in emerging technologies, and our innovative clean-energy technologies, including our Smart Solutions program.
We are the anchor sponsor of a project called the Low Carbon Resource Initiative with Electric Power Research Institute exploring low-carbon fuels such as green hydrogen — a carbon-free fuel made from water by using excess energy from renewables like wind and solar. And we are investing in renewable natural gas.
