Con Edison—providing power, gas, and steam to New York City (NYC) and Westchester—has announced an investment worth $125 million for the Reliable Clean City–Long Island City project, to connect the Vernon and Newtown substations in Queens, Long Island City. This transmission line project will have the capacity to carry 200 MW of power, and will help ensure reliability for customers in areas of Long Island City, Sunnyside, Sunnyside Gardens, Woodside, and Hunter’s Point.
In its stakeholder consultations, the utility has communicated with residents, business owners, elected officials and others in the area to minimize any inconvenience related to environmental impacts and other concerns.
The construction of the line, when combined with other investments by Con Edison, will also benefit other areas of the borough in the coming years. The line project is one of three Reliable Clean City transmission lines Con Edison is building to strategically add the required capacity to meet growing electricity demand while transitioning to a more sustainable grid along with the retirement of older fossil fuel power plants. The company plans to operate lines in Brooklyn and Staten Island by Summer 2025.
As per the utility, it is investing approximately $800 million in electric infrastructure, like substations and new transmission lines, enabling the retirement of inefficient, high polluting “peaker” power generation plants, and facilitating the delivery of renewable and reliable power to customers in NYC.
In total, Reliable Clean City projects in Queens, Staten Island, and Brooklyn will add 900 MW of transmission capacity across NYC. This is important because Con Edison expects the region’s need for electricity to grow as building owners adopt clean fuels and more drivers adopt electric vehicles. These projects represent Con Edison’s commitment to aggressively reduce carbon emissions and build a resilient energy grid that delivers 100 per cent clean, reliable energy by 2040.
Of the completed projects, it has kicked off the first project in Queens by upgrading electric substations in Corona and Long Island City and connecting them through a new six-mile (10-km) long underground transmission line. The latter line will address the reliability needs created by retiring fossil fuel-powered plants in Astoria, connecting Queens to renewable sources outside NYC, and adding 300 MW of clean energy capacity.
Among the active projects, Con Edison is making major upgrades to its substations and energizing new, subsurface transmission feeders to meet the increasing energy needs of customers. On Staten Island, it is installing an approximately nine-mile (15-km) long, 138 kV feeder between the Goethals and Fox Hills substations.
In Brooklyn, a 138 kV transmission feeder is being installed along the mile (1.6-km) stretch between the Greenwood and Gowanus substations. In Southeast Queens, the utility is constructing an indoor, storm-hardened, 138 kV transmission substation. When completed, it will allow additional points of interconnection (POI) for energy storage and future clean energy projects. A 27 kV distribution area substation is also planned.
The Vernon–Newtown line project in Queens is expected to be operational by the summer of 2026.