There are now more than 29,000 electric vehicles registered in New York City and Westchester, including 1,262 added in February, the most recent month for which data are available, according to Con Edison, the electricity, gas and steam utility for New York CIty and Westchester County, NY. To keep those EVs powered up, there are 2,065 Level 2 chargers and 260 DC fast chargers in Con Edison’s service territory, more than 400 of them added in 2021.

Customer interest is growing quickly in Con Edison’s PowerReady program, which offers incentives covering up to 100% of the infrastructure costs of installing new chargers. So, too, are enrollments in the company’s managed charging program, SmartCharge NY, which offers financial rewards for charging during off-peak hours.

Less than a year after the first PowerReady project reached completion in a Manhattan apartment building, the program has supported the installation of more than 340 Level 2 chargers and 45 DC fast chargers—including the largest publicly accessible universal charging hub in the Americas, operated by Revel in Brooklyn.

Level 2 chargers provide 240 volts, offering up to 20 miles of range for every hour a vehicle is plugged in. DC fast chargers provide 480 volts, offering 180 miles or more per hour of charging.

Through PowerReady, Con Edison aims to support installation of around 19,000 charging plugs by 2025, helping to ease range anxiety in the early days of New York’s EV market. Over the longer term, Con Edison’s Clean Energy Commitment includes a target to support 400,000 plugs by 2035, and 1 million by 2050.

Curbside Charging. While most EV drivers nationally do the majority of their charging at home or the office, New York City is a uniquely challenging environment, where half of all drivers park on the street.

To better understand and meet the needs of those drivers, Con Edison partnered last year with the NYC Department of Transportation and charging network operator FLO to install 100 curbside chargers open to the public across the city’s five boroughs.

Those chargers are in operation and Con Edison is monitoring their usage. Since their introduction last summer, the curbside chargers have delivered 238,000 kWh of electricity—enough for 746,000 miles of travel in a typical EV, or three one-way trips to the Moon. The curbside chargers have eliminated the need for consumption of nearly 30,000 gallons of gasoline, with more than 295 tons of avoided CO₂ emissions compared to gasoline-powered vehicles.

NYC DOT aims to create a network of 1,000 curbside chargers by 2025, and 10,000 by 2030. In addition to the practical benefits, each new public charger is a symbol of the EV market’s progress and a nod of encouragement to drivers considering going electric.

Electrifying Con Edison’s Fleet of Vehicles. Leading by example, Con Edison is purchasing only electric vehicles for its light-duty fleet, with 199 EVs in its fleet today, representing more than 10% of the total light-duty fleet. As its gasoline-powered vehicles are retired, the company plans to reach 80% electrification of its light-duty fleet by 2030 and 100% by 2035.

SmartCharge Registrations on the Rise. The rise of electric vehicles running on increasingly renewable power will bring big environmental benefits to New York, reducing air pollution locally and carbon emissions that feed global climate change. However, the prospect of hundreds of thousands of EVs on New York City’s streets requires careful planning to ensure future grid reliability.

With that in mind, Con Edison encourages EV drivers to sign up for its SmartCharge NY program. SmartCharge NY has become one of the most successful managed charging programs in the country, with more than 6,000 passenger cars currently enrolled.

Managed well, EV charging could bring many benefits for the electric grid. Con Edison and partners recently completed a demonstration project in White Plains, NY, that saw electric school buses sending power back onto the grid at strategic times, using so-called vehicle-to-grid technology. Con Edison will share results from its V2G demo later this week.