Consolidated Edison

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the utility company in New York. For ComEd in Illinois, see Commonwealth Edison.

Consolidated Edison, Inc. NYSE: ED is one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the United States. The company provides a wide range of energy-related products and services to its customers through the following subsidiaries: Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc., a regulated utility providing electric, gas, and steam service in New York City and Westchester County, New York; Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc., a regulated utility serving customers in a 1,350 square mile area in southeastern New York state and adjacent sections of northern New Jersey and northeastern Pennsylvania; Con Edison Solutions, a retail energy supply and services company; Con Edison Energy, a wholesale energy supply company; and Con Edison Development, a company that owns and operates generating plants and participates in other infrastructure projects.

1 Company History
2 Other information
3 Corporate Leadership
4 See also
5 External link

[edit] Company History

In 1823, Con Edison's earliest corporate entity, the New York Gas Light Company, was founded by a consortium of New York City investors. 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 2,000 customers and serving more than 100,000 commercial and residential establishments in Manhattan from the Battery to 96th Street. [1]

Con Edison's electric business also dates back to 1882, when Thomas Edison's Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York began supplying electricity to 59 customers in a one-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.

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 $12 billion in annual revenues and $27 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. Con Edison (NYSE: ED), under a number of different corporate names, remains the longest continuously traded stock on the New York Stock Exchange.

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 with a population of nearly 9 million.

[edit] Other information

A former Con Edison building on 48th Street in Manhattan was converted first into the studio for the television game show Let's Make A Deal, and later into a recording studio called "The Power Station" because of its Edison history. In 1996, the studio was renamed Avatar Studios.

The 93,000 miles of underground cable in the Con Edison system could wrap around the Earth 3.6 times. Nearly 36,000 miles of overhead electric wires complement the underground system -- enough cable to stretch between New York and Los Angeles 13 times.

The Con Edison gas system has nearly 7,200 miles of pipes – if laid end to end, long enough to reach Paris and back to New York City. The average volume of gas that travels through Con Edison's gas system annually could fill the Empire State Building nearly 6,100 times.

Con Edison operates the largest district steam system in the world. 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.