Consolidated Edison (ED) Invests $1.5B, Lowers Customer Bills

Consolidated Edison Inc (NYSE:ED) recently announced that it invests more than $1.5 billionfor System Upgrades. To provide better service with lower bills during the peak demand seasons in summer. The companyplans to upgrade and reinforce 27 network transformers as well as 58 overhead transformers. The company also plans to upgrade 61 underground feeder sections and 262 overhead spans. The investment is expected to increase customer reliability and base in the near term.

Consolidated Edison is also investing in battery storage,installing smart meters andrenewable generation assets. Notably,the company plans to invest around $12.1 billion in the 2019-2021 time frame.

Focus on Renewable Generation

Consolidated Edison is investing steadily to enhance renewable generation assets and gradually converting some operations to gas, which is environment friendly. The company plans to invest $1 billion in clean energy businesses.The company has 32,000 solar customers in Utility service area. Consolidated Edison has renewable generating capacity of 2.6 gigawatts (WW) located in 17 states. Out of this, 85% is generated from solar and 15% from wind.

In December 2018, a subsidiary of the company acquired Sempra Solar Holdings, LLC, which has ownership interests in 981 megawatts of operating renewable electric production projects. Such deals will certainly add significant impetus to the company’s renewable projects portfolio.

Utilities Shifting Towards Renewable

Dependency on fossil fuel has gradually declined in the past few years. The need for an emission-less environment is driving the industry toward renewable energy. Per an Energy Information Administration (EIA) report, renewable sources like include wind, solar and hydropower will produce 18% of U.S. electricity in 2019 and almost 20% in 2020.

Utilities are also shifting their focus to renewables and other clean sources to generate power. Utility companies like WEC Energy Group, Inc (NYSE:WEC) , NiSource (NYSE:NI) and Ameren Corporation (NYSE:AEE) are focusing on renewable sources to add more clean generations in their production portfolios.

Zacks Rank & Price Performance

Consolidated Edison currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

In the past 12 months, shares of the company have gained 20.8% compared with the industry’s rise of 18.8%.

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