CEO Conversation
Energy, Efficiency, Expertise
ConEdison Solutions
By Russell Jones
Jorge Lopez, president and CEO, ConEdison Solutions."It is wise to direct your anger towards problems — not people; to focus your energies on answers — not excuses." - William Arthur Ward
ConEdison Solutions is a wholly owned subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc., currently serving more than 200,000 customers in 10 states and the District of Columbia. The company has a front row seat to what is happening in the energy marketplace and across every sector of business.
“Our focus is on retail customers; we go out and market electric power in retail-choice programs,” says President and CEO Jorge Lopez. “We also maintain an aggressive energy services business, working with customers in developing, designing, and implementing energy-conservation measures. For energy services, our top priority is working with government or government-like entities and implementing performance contracts at those levels.”
The eighth-largest electric retailer in the country, ConEdison Solutions is continuing to grow its base and grow geographically. It has acquired Tampa-based BGA, Inc., an engineering design and performance-contracting firm, which expands the footprint of its energy services business into the southeast.
COMPLEMENT TO COMPETITION
"What you’ve seen in Connecticut is the implementation of a program where a utility will continue to provide that backstop service to customers through their standard offerings," says Lopez. "Now competition allows entities like ConEdison Solutions to come in and to offer different types of structures and pricing. Customers did take advantage of competition, “and they’re benefiting from it today with rates that we were able to lock in for them in that transition.”
Such programs have been supported by the utilities, Lopez explains. “While it is perceived as being in competition with the utilities, it’s important to recognize that the utilities themselves rarely are able to return a profit from the energy that they supply to customers. Connecticut Light & Power (CL&P) and United Illuminating (UI) have been helpful in setting up the rules that have enabled competition to come to Connecticut."
What differentiates ConEdison Solutions from CL&P and UI, in particular?
"The utilities have a very prescriptive offer to their customers. They don’t have the flexibility to offer different types of structures, different offers to customers that may benefit them. There may be opportunities for us to put offers before customers that demonstrate the savings against that utilities-based, standard-offer service.”
As one of the largest alternative energy suppliers in New York and Massachusetts, ConEdison Solutions can also blend in green power for its customers.
In addition, it can bring its energy expertise to the table in a different way, through its energy services business. “We consult with customers, and help work with them in designing and implementing efficient strategies that overall will pay off for those customers in terms of reduced energy usage,” says Lopez.
GENERATION WHERE IT’S NEEDED, WHEN IT’S NEEDED
“Our position is that the market forces will define where the generation needs to be," says Lopez. "In other states and areas, other ISOs, those rules have ensured that where generation is required, it’s being filled. “The market force, if the program is set up correctly, will send the right signal to fill generation where it is required. The recent changes in the New England ISO capacity markets have gone a long way in making sure that appropriate market signals are being sent to developers to build generation at the right places."
In terms of adequacy of supply, it is important to remind customers that our supply is revved up, that there is a system in place that ensures generation that is required to support those customers is in place and contracted for, he adds. “When you look at an overall strategy for managing those peak events, you can’t lose sight of the importance of demand-response programs responding either through the ISOs or through the utilities themselves. We have gone to work with customers in Connecticut in implementing those types of programs that will ultimately reduce their usage to their benefit—and the system’s benefit as well.”
It’s important, he says, to look at each of those components. Find additional generation, when necessary, but complement that with appropriate demand-side management and response programs and allow customers to reduce their usage in the event of those peak-hour shortages.
When it comes to proposed legislation, Lopez cites three key elements: reliability of the system, adequate supply, and customer choice.
“We support legislation that will continue to enable customers to participate in retail-choice programs and that will expand retail programs all the way down to the residential users. It’s important that we also recognize that retail-side policymaking needs to be balanced with the right rules at the wholesale level.” In New York and Massachusetts that balance has been met, and he believes it can be in Connecticut too.
No program right now can or will be successful unless there is an accompanying customer-education component to that strategy, Lopez insists, pointing to other states, such as New York and New Jersey, where the utilities have partnered with ESCOs (energy services companies) to move forward with customer-education programs, workshops, and tools.
“What’s going to make us successful,” he says, “is that concept of innovation of blending more options to buy power with the right strategy to reduce energy usage over time.”
