Action Requested: Emergency Response for New York’s Grid to Manage Extreme Weather Conditions

This week, the U.S. Department of Energy issued an emergency order to strengthen New York’s electric grid in response to severe winter weather. We’ve been fortunate to avoid widespread outages, but extreme cold weather persists. The order underscores how strained our grid has become during peak demand and how vulnerable it remains to fuel shortages and transmission bottlenecks.

This moment calls for immediate, practical action. The BCW Clean Energy Action Coalition is urging all Business Council of Westchester members to take the following steps.

1. Immediately sign up for and participate in Demand Response programs.
Programs such as Grid Rewards, Special Case Resources (SCR) and Emergency Demand Response Programs (EDRP) help keep the grid stable during peak demand while saving money for participating residents, institutions, and businesses. Contact CEAC if you would like someone to walk you through the application process for your business, home, school, or institution. Sign up today for one of the Demand Response Programs that are keeping the power on.

2. Continue to support and accelerate new transmission development.
Transmission constraints are driving extreme price spreads between upstate generation and downstate demand. We are seeing some of that cost in our latest ConEdison bills. Expanding transmission capacity is essential to move lower-cost power where it’s needed most – both to reduce congestion-driven price spikes and to the keep the lights on.

3. Expedite local distributed energy resources.
Solar paired with battery storage can be deployed faster and at lower cost than large, centralized alternatives. These resources can save us money, strengthen local reliability, reduce dependence on constrained fuel supplies, and provide immediate grid support during peak events.

CEAC is committed to strengthening New York’s energy grid by helping businesses, school districts and municipalities accelerate their adoption of clean energy technologies.