Con Edison is the second largest producer of solar power in North America, seventh in the world, with production farms in 19 states, but, remarkably, none in its service area or its home state because of New York regulations.

“It prohibits us from installing scaled green energy within New York State,” Tim Cawley, President of Con Edison, said in an exclusive interview with NY1. 

He said it’s time for the rules to change, “We’re trying to make our case to the stakeholders that have a say in the outcome, for sure."

Con Ed was forbidden from owning any large scale power-generating plants in the state under a 1997 restructuring plan adopted by the New York Public Service Commission (PSC).  Over the next few years, Con Ed had to sell the plants in New York it owned, including in the city. The remaining plants it owns in Manhattan produce steam.

“We deliver power,  we’re sort of a wires company," said Cawley.

The PSC argued that forcing Con Ed to divest itself of the plants would increase competition in the marketplace, lowering prices for consumers.

“We need to make sure that we don’t hurt competition and that we have price control constraints in place to protect consumers in the robust market that we have,” said Donna De Costanzo, Director of Eastern Energy for The Climate and Clean Energy Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

The NRDC says New York’s renewable energy policies have already attracted private companies and created jobs, but it says given the state’s ambitious goal of reaching completely carbon free electricity by 20-40, allowing a regulated utility like Con Ed to operate solar or wind farms here may be a good idea.

“It’s an interesting idea to take a look at, but then we need to very carefully develop parameters to make sure that we are maintaining competition," explained De Costanzo. "We need to explore all options because we need to really significantly scale up renewables.

"All hands on deck," said De Costanzo and Cawley in separate interviews about the need to increase the use of renewable energy.  

It’s not often an environmental group and a utility sound the same note.  Con Ed though believes the renewable markets are different from fossil fuels because the supply - and therefore the price- can’t be manipulated as easily.

"We can't turn generators on or off in the renewables market when the sun shines we get lots of renewable energy when the wind blows we get lots of it.  We can't control it and it will just feed into the market so theres no market manipulation possible,” said Cawley.

We reached out to the Public Service Commission and asked about allowing the utility to own green generation plants in the state. So far, no comment.