Con Edison Plans ‘Super Grid’ Beneath Manhattan
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In a move designed to modernize the city’s aging electrical system and prevent another blackout, Consolidated Edison Inc. plans to install an electrical “super grid” beneath Midtown Manhattan, officials said yesterday.
Expected to cost $39.3 million to develop and implement, the grid will be made of superconducting cables that can carry 10 times more electricity than traditional copper cables.
A majority of the funding will come from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which has allocated $25 million for the program.
Con Edison signed a contract with a Massachusetts-based energy technology company, American Superconductor Corp., to implement the plan. It is expected to be completed by 2010.
The Department of Homeland Security promptly decided to back the program after reviewing the deal between Con Edison and American Superconductor, department officials said. The department’s undersecretary for science and technology, Jay Cohen, said the superconductor solutions will serve to keep the country’s center of commerce in line under all conditions — including events related to severe weather, accidents, and terrorist attacks.
The technology, which has not been tested, is set to be developed in labs owned by American Superconductor, and if tests go well, the Department of Homeland Security wants to spread the technology throughout the country, department officials said.
The Department of Energy is currently funding tests of superconducting cables in Albany and Ohio, but the New York City super grid would be the first of its kind in a major metropolitan area in America.
While a large chunk of the costs will get picked up by the federal government, the effort is part of Con Edison’s wider-ranging $7.78 billion plan to upgrade its infrastructure in the city, which could lead to higher rates, critics say.
“Anything Con Ed rolls out, immediately after having the gall to ask for a rate increase, needs to be looked at suspiciously and closely,” a City Council member from Queens whose district was stricken by blackouts last summer, Peter Vallone, said.
