Con Edison offers a wide range of job opportunities, including the entry-level positions listed below.
Accounting Clerk
An accountant or bookkeeper is responsible for completing financial records and maintaining financial records. Con Edison’s accounting clerks help prepare tax returns, balance accounts, prepare bank reconciliations and process payrolls.
Associate Accountant
An associate accountant works with accountants, bookkeepers and other finance personnel to ensure that all business transactions are documented in accurate, timely manner. They also maintain the books of account for each department and perform general ledger entries as required.
Customer Service Representative
A customer service representative is responsible for answering questions from customers about energy services, billing issues and service outages. They also assist customers who are having difficulty paying their bills or have lost power due to an outage.
Electrical Engineer/Electrical Designer (Entry Level)
An electrical engineer uses technical knowledge in electrical engineering to design various pieces of equipment used by Con Edison’s customers. Electrical engineers may work on projects such as installing new transformers at substations or designing new models of equipment so that they run more efficiently or safely than current models do.
Con Edison Entry Level Jobs
Consolidated Edison, Inc., commonly known as Con Edison (stylized as conEdison) or ConEd, is one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the United States, with approximately $12 billion in annual revenues as of 2017, and over $62 billion in assets.[4] The company provides a wide range of energy-related products and services to its customers through its subsidiaries:
Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. (CECONY), a regulated utility providing electric and gas service in New York City and Westchester County, New York, and steam service in the borough of Manhattan;
Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc., a regulated utility serving customers in a 1,300-square-mile (3,400 km2) area in southeastern New York and northern New Jersey;
Con Edison Solutions, an energy services company;
Con Edison Energy, a wholesale energy services company;
Con Edison Development, a company that owns and operates renewable and energy infrastructure projects, and,
Con Edison Transmission, Inc., which invests in electric and natural gas transmission projects.
In 2015, electric revenues accounted for 70.35% of consolidated sales (70.55% in 2014); gas revenues 13.61% (14.96% in 2014); steam revenues 5.01% (4.86% in 2014); and non-utility revenues of 11.02% (9.63% in 2014).[5]
Contents
1 History
2 Systems
2.1 Clean energy
2.2 Electrical
2.3 Gas
2.4 Steam
3 Programs and resources
4 Community partnerships
5 Leadership and associations
6 Major accidents and incidents
7 Bribery prosecution
8 Honors and criticism
8.1 Unclean energy
9 Stop tags
10 Adaptive re-use of former Con Ed buildings
11 See also
12 References
13 External links
History
A sketch of the Pearl Street Station, an early power plant on Pearl Street
As well as gas and electricity, Con Ed supplies steam to New York City
In 1823, Con Edison’s earliest corporate predecessor, the New York Gas Light Company, was founded by a consortium of New York City investors. A year later, it was listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Due to the Board of Aldermen’s authority to grant franchises in the City of New York in the early to mid 1800s, interaction with Tammany Hall was required to expand business. By William M. Tweed’s reign in the late 1860s as the boss of Tammany Hall, the power to authorize franchises lay with the County Board of Supervisors, of which Tweed had been a member. By 1871, Tweed was a member of the board of the Harlem Gas Light Company, a precursor to the Consolidated Edison Company.[6] In 1884, six gas companies combined into the Consolidated Gas Company.
The New York Steam Company began providing service in lower Manhattan in 1882. Today, Con Edison operates the largest commercial steam system in the world, providing steam service to nearly 1,600 commercial and residential establishments in Manhattan from Battery Park to 96th Street.[7]
Con Edison’s electric business also dates back to 1882, when Thomas Edison’s Edison Illuminating Company of New York began supplying electricity to 59 customers in a square-mile area in lower Manhattan. After the “war of currents”, there were more than 30 companies generating and distributing electricity in New York City and Westchester County. But by 1920 there were far fewer, and the New York Edison Company (then part of Consolidated Gas) was clearly the leader.
In 1936, with electric sales far outstripping gas sales, the company incorporated and the name was changed to Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. The years that followed brought further amalgamations as Consolidated Edison acquired or merged with more than a dozen companies between 1936 and 1960. Con Edison today is the result of acquisitions, dissolutions and mergers of more than 170 individual electric, gas and steam companies.
Consolidated Edison acquired land on the Hudson River in Buchanan, NY, in 1954 for the Indian Point nuclear power plant. The first reactor (Indian Point 1) began generating power on September 16, 1962. The reactor was shut down on October 31, 1974, because the emergency core cooling system did not meet regulatory requirements. The company built two more reactors at Indian Point during the 1970s: Indian Point 2 and 3. Indian Point 3 was sold to the New York Power Authority in 1975.[8] Entergy acquired Indian Point 2 in November 2000,[9] nine months after a steam generator leak.[10] With the sale of Indian Point 2, the last power plant it owned, Consolidated Edison, Inc. became primarily an energy distributor.[9]
On January 1, 1998, following the deregulation of the utility industry in New York state, a holding company, Consolidated Edison, Inc., was formed. It is one of the nation’s largest investor-owned energy companies, with approximately $13 billion in annual revenues and $47 billion in assets. The company provides a wide range of energy-related products and services to its customers through two regulated utility subsidiaries and three competitive energy businesses. Under a number of corporate names, the company has been traded on the NYSE without interruption since 1824—longer than any other NYSE stock. Its largest subsidiary, Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc., provides electric, gas and steam service to more than 3 million customers in New York City and Westchester County, New York, an area of 660 square miles (1,700 km2) with a population of nearly 9 million. Also in 1998, Consolidated Edison, Inc. acquired Orange & Rockland Utilities, which is operated separately.[11]
Systems
Clean energy
To date, Con Edison has invested $3 billion in solar and wind projects. In September 2017 it was announced that the company would invest $1.25 billion in “renewable energy production facilities over the next three years.”[12]
The company’s “renewable portfolio” contains more than 1.5 gigawatts of operating capacity. Seventy-five percent of that capacity comes from solar energy. Clean energy accounts for around eight percent of the company’s earnings, as of fall 2017.[12]
To support electric vehicles, Con Edison partnered with the company FleetCarma to provide $500 in rewards to owners of electric vehicles in New York City and Westchester County, New York. Through this program, Con Edison pays customers to charge their vehicles when energy demand is low.[13]
Electrical
The Con Edison electrical transmission system utilizes voltages of 138 kilovolts (kV), 345 kV, and 500 kV. The company has two 345 kV interconnections with upstate New York that enable it to import power from Hydro-Québec in Canada and one 345 kV interconnection each with Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G) in New Jersey and Long Island. Con Edison’s connection with Hydro-Québec is via a series of transmission lines owned by the New York Power Authority and neighboring utilities; a more-direct connection via the Champlain Hudson Power Express HVDC line is expected to come online in 2021.[14]
Con Edison is also interconnected with PSE&G via the Branchburg-Ramapo 500 kV line. Con Ed’s distribution voltages are 33 kV, 27 kV, 13 kV, and 4 kV.
The 93,000 miles (150,000 km) of underground cable in the Con Edison system could wrap around the Earth 3.6 times. Nearly 36,000 miles (58,000 km) of overhead electric wires complement the underground system—enough cable to stretch between New York and Los Angeles 13 times.[15]
Gas
The Con Edison gas system has nearly 7,200 miles (11,600 km) of pipes—if laid end to end, long enough to reach Paris and back to New York City, and serves Westchester County, the Bronx, Manhattan and parts of Queens. Gas service in Brooklyn, Staten Island and the rest of Queens is provided by National Grid USA’s New York City operations, with the exception of the Rockaway peninsula, which is serviced by National Grid’s Long Island operations. The average volume of gas that travels through Con Edison’s gas system annually could fill the Empire State Building nearly 6,100 times.[16]
Steam
Main article: New York City steam system
Con Edison produces 30 billion pounds of steam each year through its seven power plants which boil water to 1,000 °F (538 °C) before distributing it to hundreds of buildings in the New York City steam system, which is the biggest district steam system in the world.[17] Steam traveling through the system is used to heat and cool some of New York’s most famous addresses, including the United Nations complex, the Empire State Building, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[18]
Programs and resources
ConEd offers a variety of programs and resources for its customers and stakeholders, organized in such categories as, “For Renters”, “For Residential Owners”, “For Small & Medium Businesses”, “For Commercial & Industrial”, “Business Partners”, “Investors”, “Community Affairs”, and “Municipalities”.[19] Examples of such resources include:
CONCERN Program, which offers eligible customers a specially trained representative and advice about government aid programs, safety tips, and ways to save money on one’s energy bill[20]
Quarterly Billing Plan, which allows senior citizens, whose Con Edison bills are less than $420 a year, to receive bills once every three months (in March, June, September, and December), rather than once a month[20]
SPOTLIGHT, Con Edison’s newsletter[20][21]
Community partnerships
Con Edison contributes substantial funding and volunteer hours to many non-profit organizations and learning centers including New York Botanical Garden, Hudson Valley Groundworks Science Barge, Teatown Reservation, Jay Heritage Center, and the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.
Leadership and associations
Timothy P. Cawley, Chairman, president and Chief Executive Officer, Consolidated Edison, Inc.
Matt Ketschke, president, Con Edison of New York
Robert Sanchez, president and CEO, Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc.
Mark Noyes, president and CEO, Con Edison Energy, Con Edison Development, and Con Edison Solutions
Joseph P. Oates, president and CEO, Con Edison Transmission
Robert N. Hoglund, senior vice president and chief financial officer
Sylvia Dooley, vice president and corporate secretary
Nancy Shannon, vice president, Human Resources
Joseph Miller, vice president, controller and chief accounting officer
Yukari Saegusa, vice president and treasurer
Deneen L. Donnley, senior vice president and general counsel
Scott Sanders, vice president, Business Finance
ConEd Solutions is a member of Real Estate Board of New York.[22]
Major accidents and incidents
1977: All of New York City, with the exception of the Rockaways – which get their power from the Long Island Lighting Company (LILCo) – was blacked out overnight on July 13 and 14, due to lightning strikes on a number of sub-stations and the resulting failures of interconnects in the power grid.
1989: A steam pipe explosion in Gramercy Park killed three, injured 24, and required the evacuation of a damaged apartment building due to high levels of asbestos in the air. Workers had failed to drain water from the pipe before turning the steam on. The utility also eventually pleaded guilty to lying about the absence of asbestos contamination, and paid a $2 million fine.[23]
2004: In Manhattan, stray voltage killed a woman walking her dog in the East Village when she stepped on an electrified metal plate.[24]
2006: After the blackout in Queens, the company was criticized by public officials for a poor record in the restoration of service to its customers.[25]
2007: On July 18, an explosion occurred in midtown Manhattan near Grand Central Terminal when an 83-year-old Con Edison steam pipe failed, resulting in one death, over 40 injuries, as well as subway and surface disruptions.[26]
2007: The day before Thanksgiving, an explosion critically burned Queens resident Kunta Oza when an 80-year-old cast iron gas main ruptured. Oza died on Thanksgiving Day, and her family later settled with Con Edison for $3.75 million.[27]
2009: Another gas explosion claimed a life in Queens while Con Edison personnel were on the scene. There was a leak in a manhole and a fault in an electrical feeder at the same time. The fault in the feeder caused the explosion due to the sparks being generated. When the mechanic opened the manhole more oxygen entered and the explosion took place.[citation needed] Due to that event, Con Edison has changed its procedure on outside gas leak calls.[28]
2012:
On October 29, flooding from Hurricane Sandy caused a transformer explosion at a Con-Ed plant on New York City’s East Side.[29][30]
During the storm, Con Edison used social media to get outage and restoration information out to customers. The company’s Twitter account gained an extra 16,000 followers during the storm.[31][32]
Con Edison’s subsidiary, Orange & Rockland Utilities, was criticized for its response to Hurricane Sandy. Some customers experienced a loss of electrical power for 11 days.[33]
2014: On March 12, two apartment buildings exploded in East Harlem after a reported Con Edison gas leak. Eight people were killed in the massive explosion that reduced the conjoining buildings to rubble.[34][35]
2018: After 9 p.m. on December 27, a transformer short-circuit[36] at a ConEd power plant in Astoria, Queens shut down La Guardia Airport for several hours – until it switched to back-up generators – caused extensive delays on the #7 subway line, and an outage on Rikers Island, until it, too, reverted to back-up equipment.[37] The incident caused a large portion of the sky in the surrounding area to be lit up by blue light[38] that was caused by arc flashes, in which light-emitting atoms of excited gas, called plasma, are projected into the air. The arc flashes probably lasted only a few minutes, but because of meteorological conditions which caused them to be refracted, they were seen across a large portion of the New York City metropolitan area.[36][39][37] There was no explosion or fire connected to the electrical surge,[36] and no reported injuries.[40] The New York Police Department reported that 911 calls increased from 500 in the half-hour before the event to over 3,200 in the 30 minutes afterwards. ConEd is investigating the cause of the surge in equipment that was intended to monitor voltage in the electrical sub-station, but suspects that the problem was a malfunctioning of its relay system.[37] The lights were nicknamed the “Astoria Borealis” on Twitter.[41]
2019: On the night of July 13 a significant portion of Manhattan saw a blackout due to a Consolidated Edison cable that burnt out in a transformer on West End Avenue.[42][43] The blackout, which lasted for about three hours, shut down a number of subway stations, much of the West Side from the 40s to 72nd Street, parts of Times Square and Rockefeller Center, and other areas, resulting in an estimated 73,000 customers losing power.[44] The outage fell on the anniversary of the 1977 blackout which most of the city lost power.
2020: During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, 170 Consolidated Edison employees tested positive for COVID-19 and three died.[45][46] Consolidated Edison said they would not shut off service due to non-payment related to the health crisis and would waive any new late-payment charges for customers.[47]
2021: On the evening of May 7, a power failure of the third rail near Northern Boulevard station severely disrupted subway service along the IND Queens Boulevard Line, which happens to be one of the busiest lines in the subway system. Some people reported being stuck on subway trains between stations for as long as 3 hours. The power failure continued throughout the night on May 7 and lasted throughout the day on May 8. As of 2 PM EDT on May 8, limited service had been restored in the affected area, albeit local only; express service had not yet been restored. The MTA said at that time that they were in the process of testing the third rail in the area using out of service trains.[citation needed][clarification needed]
Bribery prosecution
On January 14, 2009, eleven Con Edison supervisors were arrested for demanding more than $1 million in kickbacks related to work done by a construction company that was repairing the midtown steam pipe eruption of 2007. According to federal prosecutors, the employees had approved payment for work that was unnecessary or not performed, and promised faster payment for some work performed by the construction company in exchange for the bribes. The FBI had two retired Con Edison employees and the president of the construction company wear recording devices that recorded the suspects demanding bribes of between $1000 to $5000.[48] Later that year Con Edison sued Brendan Maher, one of the construction supervisors who was arrested and later admitted taking bribes that the utility company claimed amounted to $10,000.[49]
In April 2016, Con Edison agreed to pay over $171 million, about 1.5% of its annual revenue, back to its customers in compensation for harm resulting from the bribery. The Public Service Commission had found that Con Edison failed to supervise the employees. Con Edison admitted no wrongdoing.[50]
