All-new appliances for free? How a new Con Ed program provides them

WAKEFIELD, The Bronx (PIX11) -- It's a new program whose promise of brand new, super-efficient appliances, lower monthly bills, and a smaller carbon footprint has left some utility customers skeptical.

However, the promises are real -- and free of charge -- as part of a new program Con Edison is doing to move customers away from natural gas use and onto low energy-consumption, all-electric use.

The number of eligible customers is limited, but the utility provides financial incentives to customers to adopt many of the resources the program offers. 

According to one participant in the program, those resources are significant. Bernice Jones is one of a dozen inaugural customers in Con Ed's Electric Advantage program. 

She talked about how it's benefited her, while she boiled an egg on her brand new induction stove. "I was like a little skeptical about the whole thing," she said, as her egg quickly got ready, "Especially when they said that it would be free."   

Completely free of charge, she received the dual-oven induction stove, split-system heat pumps in four of her rooms, and an electric water heater. She owns a two-family home, and the same appliances were installed in her tenant's home as well. 

She also received full insulation in the walls and ceiling of her home. 

It's all because she lives on the border that separates the Bronx from Mt. Vernon. Decades ago, the utility was required to run one gas line to the border of the Bronx, and then run a separate one on the Mt. Vernon side. 

The end of the Bronx gas line was in poor condition, and slated for replacement. 

Rather than do that, Con Ed chose to create Electric Advantage. 

Melissa Lott, a professor of professional practice at the Columbia University Climate School, said that programs like Electric Advantage are advantageous for more than just utility customers. 

"It's actually beneficial for the utility to encourage these types of things over time," she said in an interview, "because it's expensive to replace big pipelines."  

She said that she's been in contact and consultation with a variety of utilities and municipalities that are trying similar programs.

"It's all over the country, these types of trends that are coming up," Prof. Lott said, "but Con Ed is leading on a lot of it." 

Only a few hundred customers are eligible for the Electric Advantage program, but Con Ed is providing financial incentives for most of its 3.6 million customers to acquire some of the resources that program participants like Ms. Jones got. 

Mark Brescia is a Con Edison energy program manager. He first met with Ms. Jones and another neighbor last fall to let them know that they were eligible for Electric Advantage. They signed up after researching its resources. 

Those resources, Brescia said, are "available to all customers." 

"So this is a great example," he continued, "that homes like this, older homes, this is really good for them."