All of us at Con Edison learned invaluable lessons from last summer’s power outages in northwest Queens. Our performance did not meet the standards our customers expect and deserve, or the expectations we set for ourselves.
Since then, we have been improving our electric infrastructure and establishing better emergency response procedures. In the Long Island City network alone, we’ve invested approximately $90 million to repair and upgrade equipment. We have installed 127,000 feet of new cable, put in more than 80 new transformers and enlarged dozens of underground structures to improve reliability.
We’ve made it easier for customers with service problems to reach us by adding approximately 300 new telephone lines to our customer call centers. We are developing more sophisticated systems to provide better information on the scope of a power outage. We will also send customer survey teams out to affected areas during emergencies.
Finally, we are accelerating the schedule for building new substations in Sunnyside and Jamaica. Not only will these new facilities accommodate anticipated increases in electricity use, but they will help deliver more reliable service in Queens.
New homes, apartment houses and stores are opening in every community, and they all require new energy infrastructure. New Yorkers are also using 20 percent more electricity today than just 10 years ago. Just look around any home or office and see how electricity is being used in ways that it was not a decade ago: faster, more powerful home computers, laptops, scanners, printers, video games, cell phone chargers, I-Pods, and home entertainment centers with large flat-screen TVs.
That is why every investment we make in Queens, and elsewhere in our service area, is an investment for a reliable, robust infrastructure that will meet the needs of future generations.
We look forward to working with state and local leaders on how to fund the investments necessary to enhance and expand our electric delivery system in the years to come.
Con Edison employees remain committed to our customers in Queens, and the company has pledged to continue investing in the city’s most diverse borough to deliver electricity safely and reliably.
John H. Banks is Vice President of Government Affairs for Con Edison
