Westchester commercial energy: Con Ed, NYSEG

One county, two utilities, and the line that decides the rest

Westchester is served by two investor-owned utilities, and which one reaches an address decides almost everything that follows. The county's own utilities reference states it plainly: power in Westchester County is transmitted and distributed by Consolidated Edison Company of New York and by New York State Electric and Gas. Con Edison's system description, in the state energy authority's own utility profile, says the company serves all five boroughs of New York City as well as Westchester County, connecting more than 3.5 million customers and carrying almost 40 per cent of New York State's electric demand while covering roughly one per cent of its land. Inside Westchester the footprint is dense: about 30,000 businesses and organisations and 350,000 housing units within roughly 450 square miles. NYSEG takes the rest of the county. Both utilities are investor-owned, both file their tariffs with the Public Service Commission, and both allow competitive supply, so most Westchester addresses can be shopped - but the two have different delivery tariffs, different default supply arrangements and, as the next section sets out, different wholesale zones. An offer written for one is not an offer for the other, and neither is an offer written for a Manhattan address next door.

• The county's utilities reference names Consolidated Edison and New York State Electric and Gas as the two companies that transmit and distribute power in Westchester.
• Con Edison's Westchester coverage is put at about 30,000 businesses and organisations and 350,000 housing units in roughly 450 square miles.
• Con Edison's system connects more than 3.5 million customers and carries almost 40 per cent of the state's electric demand on about one per cent of its land.
• Both utilities file tariffs with the Public Service Commission and both allow competitive supply, under their own rules.
• An offer written for one utility territory is not an offer for the other.

Zones H and I: two pricing zones inside one county

NYISO's public load reference lists three subzones covering the county: Con Edison Millwood and Con Edison Dunwoodie, sitting in the Millwood and Dunwoodie zones, and NYSEG Millwood, which shares the Millwood zone with Con Edison. The state's eleven load zones run from A to K, and the Commission's exhibit describing the New York control area places zones F to I inside the Hudson Valley, with Zone J as New York City and Zone K as Long Island. Millwood is H. Dunwoodie is I. Why does a county care about zone letters? Because a competitive offer is built from a forward energy component and a capacity component, and in New York neither is a single statewide number: capacity is set zone by zone in the state's capacity market, and locational energy prices clear separately in each zone because constraints between zones carry a cost. The Commission's account of where the zones came from is equally useful to a buyer - they were drawn primarily from the topology of the transmission system and secondarily from the franchise areas of the investor-owned utilities. The result is that the zone, not the county and not the utility, is the pricing unit, and two addresses on the same utility tariff can sit in different zones.

• NYISO's load reference carries Con Edison Millwood, Con Edison Dunwoodie and NYSEG Millwood subzones in the county.
• Millwood is Zone H and Dunwoodie is Zone I of the eleven zones running A to K; zones F to I are the Hudson Valley.
• The zones were drawn from transmission topology and, secondarily, from the utilities' franchise areas.
• Capacity and locational energy prices are set zone by zone, so offers are not transferable between zones.
• Two addresses on the same utility tariff can price in different zones.

What Indian Point's retirement changed

The county's largest in-basin generator is gone. The Energy Information Administration's account records that the Indian Point Energy Center permanently stopped generating on 30 April 2021 when it retired its last operating reactor, Unit 3, and that the retirement removed almost 1,040 megawatts of nuclear generating capacity from New York State, leaving about 3,200 megawatts at three upstate plants. The site sits in Buchanan, about 25 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, and the same account notes that Con Edison's grid system distributed the plant's output to the five boroughs of New York City and to neighbouring Westchester County - which is why its retirement was a Westchester procurement fact and not only a New York City one. Two consequences follow. The first is a change in where the county's power comes from: the EIA lists three gas-fired plants introduced to help support the New York City supply Indian Point had provided, Bayonne Energy Center II, CPV Valley Energy Center and Cricket Valley Energy Center. The second is the price gradient the county sits on. The Commission's exhibit places the state's large hydro, nuclear and coal generation in western New York and describes the downstate fleet as still highly dependent on an ageing set of combustion and gas turbines, which is the same west-to-east difference a supply contract is exposed to.

• Indian Point permanently stopped generating on 30 April 2021, when Unit 3 retired.
• The retirement removed almost 1,040 MW of nuclear capacity from New York State, leaving about 3,200 MW upstate.
• The plant sat in Buchanan, about 25 miles north of Midtown Manhattan, and Con Edison's grid distributed its output to New York City and Westchester County.
• The EIA lists three gas-fired plants introduced to support the supply Indian Point had provided: Bayonne Energy Center II, CPV Valley and Cricket Valley.
• The state's cheap hydro, nuclear and coal generation sits in the west; the downstate fleet is described as still highly dependent on ageing combustion and gas turbines.

Westchester Power: the countywide aggregation

A share of the county buys its supply through one of the largest community choice aggregation programmes in New York. Westchester Power is administered by Sustainable Westchester, a non-profit consortium of Westchester local governments, on behalf of the municipalities that joined it. The programme's own FAQ describes 27 participating municipalities representing about 100,000 households and small businesses, and explains the mechanism in the terms that matter to a business: the utility still delivers the power, maintains the lines and responds to outages, and the customer still receives a single bill from Con Edison or NYSEG, with the supply line changed. Supply is procured by competitive bid from registered New York suppliers, and the county is bought in more than one contract because the two utility territories are bid separately. The FAQ records the original award to Con Edison Solutions for the 17 Con Edison communities and to Constellation New Energy for the four NYSEG communities, with Constellation acquiring Con Edison Solutions in December 2016. Because the contracts are separate, terms and supply mix differ by territory, so what a NYSEG address in the north of the county receives is not what a Con Edison address receives. The programme is authorised by the Public Service Commission - the FAQ cites the Order Granting Petition in Part in Case 14-M-0564, issued 26 February 2015.

• Westchester Power is administered by Sustainable Westchester, a non-profit consortium of the county's local governments.
• The programme's FAQ describes 27 participating municipalities and about 100,000 households and small businesses.
• The utility still delivers, maintains the lines and responds to outages; one bill still arrives from Con Edison or NYSEG.
• Supply is bought by competitive bid, and the Con Edison and NYSEG parts of the county are contracted separately.
• The programme cites its authorisation to the Order Granting Petition in Part in Case 14-M-0564, issued 26 February 2015.

The rules that govern a programme like this

New York's aggregation framework lives in Case 14-M-0224, opened by the Commission's Order Authorizing Framework for Community Choice Aggregation Opt-Out Program of 21 April 2016 and amended by the Order Modifying Community Choice Aggregation Programs and Establishing Further Process of 19 January 2023. Two features of it decide whether a programme reaches a given account. The unit of participation is the municipality: a city, town or village files an implementation plan itself or through a CCA administrator it selects, which is why a county-wide programme is assembled from participating municipalities rather than created by the county. And enrolment without a signature is a Commission grant rather than a default, because the Uniform Business Practices stop an ESCO requesting customer data or enrolling a customer without that customer's individual authorisation; the aggregation is built around residential and small-commercial accounts. The framework is live and being administered: the Commission's order of 27 January 2025 approved PowerMarket as a CCA administrator with a Master Implementation Plan template, applying the current programme rules on outreach, filing information, product offerings and customer data handling. For a business the operative question is whether the account sits inside the classes a programme can enrol on its own, because a larger commercial account is usually better served by its own contract than by a programme it was never automatically part of.

• Opt-out enrolment is a Commission grant, not a default: the Uniform Business Practices bar enrolment without individual authorisation.
• The aggregation is built around residential and small-commercial accounts, so a large commercial account buys its own supply.
• The unit of participation is the municipality; a county-wide programme is assembled from the municipalities that join.
• The Commission's 27 January 2025 order approved PowerMarket as a CCA administrator under the current programme rules.
• A larger commercial account usually has to opt in, and often gets more from its own contract.

What to assemble before a Westchester energy quote

The file starts with the utility name at the address, because Con Edison and NYSEG have separate tariffs and separate retail access rules. The bill supplies the rate schedule and the delivery charges exactly as they are printed, together with the account and meter numbers and the arrangement the supply sits on today. From the account's history, take twelve months of consumption by month with the maximum demand reading for each month; kilowatt-hours plus peak demand is what a supplier prices for electricity. From the agreement, take the end date and the notice period, read from the contract rather than from the first invoice. Then check three things that catch Westchester accounts out. Which zone the address maps to, because an offer priced in the other zone is not comparable. Whether the municipality joined an aggregation, and whether the account's service class ever put it inside one. And whether the site is a large commercial account whose class falls outside the opt-out list, because that is the account an aggregation will not reach without a decision. Competitive supply depends on the service address, the meter and the utility territory that serves it; municipal utilities, cooperatives and some jurisdictions have no choice at all. HighGround works as an advisor-assisted channel rather than a rate table, sourcing electricity and natural gas supply through the Broker Online Exchange supplier network. HighGround may receive provider compensation on completed purchases, and an inquiry places no order and switches no supplier.

• Read the utility name at the address first: Con Edison and NYSEG have separate tariffs and separate rules.
• From the bill: rate schedule, delivery charges, account and meter numbers, current supply arrangement.
• From the usage history: twelve monthly consumption figures with each month's peak demand, rather than an annual total.
• From the agreement: end date and notice period, taken from the contract rather than the invoice.
• Check the zone, whether the municipality joined an aggregation, and whether the account's class sits outside the opt-out list.
• Competitive supply depends on the service address, the meter and the utility territory; municipal utilities, cooperatives and some jurisdictions have no choice at all.

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