Energy & Science
New Yorkers Who Cut Power Use During Heat Wave Get ConEd Payout
- ConEd offers to pay residents to cut use in outer boroughs
- Household power demand surging with hot weather during virus
People visit the beach at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York on July 19.
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
New York City apartments dwellers willing to turn down their air conditioners amid a searing heat wave could get a little extra cash this summer.
Power provider Consolidated Edison Inc. will, for the first time, pay residents for cutting electricity use when demand peaks and costs are the highest. The effort, coming one year after a massive blackout left 72,000 New Yorkers without power, is an expansion of a program that pays big commercial power users to cut back when demand spikes.