Our Integrated Strategy to Address Climate Change

Physical Risks and System Resiliency

We have a proud legacy of learning and building back stronger following extreme weather events. In recent years, we adopted a more forward-looking strategy to maintain the safety, reliability, and resiliency of our electric, gas, and steam delivery systems through the 21st century and beyond.

The resilience of our systems is critical to our operational sustainability considering ongoing and anticipated climate change-related physical challenges such as sea-level rise, extreme weather events, and prolonged periods of intense heat. We are taking proactive steps to reduce the risks of power outages and damage to our equipment when such adverse events occur, including:

• Constructing weather-resistant assets and enhancing existing infrastructure.
• Incorporating climate change adaptation measures, tools, and approaches into our engineering and planning.
• Measuring and benchmarking our resilience efforts based on the latest climate studies and projections.

Our climate resilience journey began in 2012 following Superstorm Sandy. We spent $1 billion on hardening our infrastructure for severe weather. We formalized our proactive, forward-looking approach to system resilience with CECONY’s 2019 Climate Change Vulnerability Study (CCVS) and 2020 Climate Change Implementation Plan (CCIP). In the latter, we committed to periodically reviewing climate science projections. In September 2023, CECONY updated its CCVS with the latest climate science and will continue to do so at least every five years. We filed Climate Resilience Plans with the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) in November 2023 and updated them in February 2025 to align with the projects and programs approved as climate resilience by the PSC in its December 2024 Order in Case E-22-0222. The PSC’s Order also stated that the cost, timing, and priority of these investments be addressed in ongoing and future rate cases.

The filing process provided us the opportunity to align with the PSC on climate-driven projects and programs to reinforce our electric infrastructure. Our study used the latest climate projections (CMIP6) provided by NYSERDA in partnership with Columbia University as well as supplemental data provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We applied our established risk tolerances for the various climate variables to project climate impacts out to 2080. Considerations for planning purposes included potentially high-impact events that have a low probability of occurring.

CECONY used the information to determine the refinements needed to align our existing climate resilience planning efforts with the most recent projections of climate change. O&R applied its resilience objectives to the climate data to identify its respective climate-driven adaptation measures and investment needs for its service territory.

Through investment plans focused on prevention, mitigation, and response activities, we expect to minimize customer outages and adapt to the potential adverse impacts to our assets resulting from extreme weather events. For example, using lifecycle design, we are proposing adaptation measures including upgrading or replacing our equipment and infrastructure assets based on the projected climate through the end of their useful life.

Transition Risks

This transition to a low or net zero carbon economy will require substantial investments and may involve potential risks and uncertainties. In particular, reducing statewide GHG emissions by 2050, as set forth in New York State’s CLCPA, requires a dramatic shift away from fossil-based energy. This shift requires us to reimagine our gas system and decarbonize our steam operations. Meeting the CLCPA’s emissions limits will also require expansion of our electric delivery network while we are transitioning it to be supplied by renewable energy sources. Our strategy to support the societal goal of decarbonization is to position each of our systems, individually and collectively, to achieve a transformation in energy delivery while continuing to provide best-in-class service. We will leverage our investments to provide safe, cost-effective, and reliable options to meet our customers on their journey to decarbonization while providing education and incentives to change how they consume energy. We will:

• Build the grid of the future to accommodate increased electrification, support new renewable energy interconnections, and provide a platform for more complex and flexible grid solutions.
• Reimagine our gas system to support decarbonization, including measures to reduce methane emissions, assist customers to transition to other energy sources, right sizing the system, and evaluating the potential for mixing in low carbon fuels (LCF).
• Lead by reducing the carbon footprint of our steam system by using industrial heat pumps, electric boilers, thermal energy storage, and LCFs for generation to provide a cost-effective option for difficult-to-electrify buildings.

We expect peak demand on our electric system to shift to winter by 2043 due to customers converting from gas to electric heat and from gas and diesel-powered cars to EVs. The pace at which our customers make these changes, however, depends on factors including public policy requirements, rates of customer adoption, and technology advancements.

Investments

We will have to make substantial investments to simultaneously support the clean energy transition and increase the resilience of our energy delivery systems. We anticipate these investments will require increases to utility bills and total energy costs. While the goals of clean energy are widely supported, the associated financial burdens can be significant for customers, especially those most vulnerable. To mitigate these risks, we continuously evaluate utility bill and supply chain cost increases and, through proactive advanced planning methods, optimize the phasing of investments to help alleviate cost pressures on customers. Our approach includes enhancing energy affordability programs, energy efficiency programs dedicated to low-income customers, and directing substantial investments towards economically disadvantaged communities.

Over half of our planned investments (54%) advance clean energy and climate resilience efforts, either in addition to, or in combination with, our core safety and reliability investments (see figure 12).

Figure 12

[3] This statement and analysis contained within are based on information available as of October 2024. The New York Public Service Commission’s December 2024 Order (Case #22-E-0222) directed the company to remove certain investments from the resilience plan.

Planning

We built adaptability into our planning process such that we can adjust to the latest available insights and requirements as well as the pace of customers’ adoption of renewable and electrification technologies. CECONY’s Integrated Long-Range Plan (ILRP) details how we plan to reduce GHG emissions while staying true to our mission of providing safe, reliable, clean and resilient energy.  O&R’s Long Range Plan (issued in January 2024), shares a similar approach as CECONY’s in identifying investments by strategic objectives: clean energy, climate resilience, core service and customer engagement.

CECONY’s ILRP considers uncertainty and risk mitigation for our three energy systems under the following initiatives:

• Enhance core services.
• Enable change in energy consumption.
• Further modernize our infrastructure.
• Transform the energy supply.

It also discusses our support of the energy transition through harmonizing plans across our electric, steam, and gas systems to achieve a singular decarbonization goal. This includes how we integrate climate resilience into engineering, operations, and planning in each company, and refine our efforts to prevent, mitigate and respond to ever more intense projected impacts from climate change through a proposed set of climate-data driven programs and projects in five-, ten and twenty-year timeframes.

Figure 13

Finally, our ILRP builds on detailed, holistic planning efforts and discusses the qualitative and quantitative impacts of the hybrid and deep decarbonization net-zero transition pathways (see figure 13) that may unfold in the coming years statewide in addition to our current forecasts on our systems and strategy. Our ILRP results in distinct gas system usage profiles, while helping to achieve the CLCPA’s 2050 statewide emissions limit.

We will reevaluate and republish our ILRP every three years to communicate how we are adjusting our strategy through 2050 based on factors including market dynamics, technology development, policy priorities, and customer adoption rates. We will keep abreast of these and other relevant factors through continuing to identify opportunities to apply innovations and new technology to address: 1) the effects of climate change on our systems; 2) building reliability and resilience into our systems, and 3) reducing the cost of our energy.

For more information, please read:

CECONY Climate Change Resilience Plan and O&R Climate Change Resilience Plan

CECONY Integrated Long-Range Plan and O&R Long-Range Plan

Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosure

Gas System Long-Term Plan and Appendices

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