GRID READINESS: CREATING A CLEAN, CLIMATE RESILIENT, AND RELIABLE ENERGY GRID

New York City’s (NYC or City) strategy to meet city and state climate policy targets relies heavily on electrification. Local Law 154 of 2021 requires the City to study the readiness of NYC’s electric grid to accommodate anticipated customer demand given increased levels of electrification. To assess the readiness of New York City’s grid, this research geospatially allocated anticipated citywide electrification to each Con Edison distribution network. This network-level geospatial forecast of load impacts was used with publicly available data from Con Edison to determine where additional investment or analysis may be necessary to avoid issues of resource reliability and grid readiness in the future. This research evaluates electrification load impacts and interactions with the Con Edison distribution system under several load management scenarios to assess the value of increased load management and exporting technologies. While the analysis finds that Con Edison is already planning upgrades in several networks expected to face electrification accommodation challenges accommodating electrification, additional investments and upgrades may be required. Many upgrades may have substantial lead times, and the analysis suggests that the City and Con Edison should conduct additional distribution planning in the near-term to prevent the grid from becoming a bottleneck to electrification and achievement of City climate targets.