Press Release

NEW YORK, Sept. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The warmer-than-normal temperatures over one of the hottest summers on record pushed electricity use in New York City and Westchester to new heights, Con Edison said today. The utility reported 18,742,739 megawatt hours of electricity consumed during June, July and August, enough power to supply the states of Vermont, Rhode Island and Alaska combined for an entire year. This summer's record electricity use surpassed the 17,491,313 megawatt hours used over the same three-month period in 2002. In order to ensure the continued safe and reliable delivery of electricity to meet the region's ever-growing demand, the company is investing more than $1 billion a year to upgrade and maintain its transmission and distribution system.

"Our infrastructure investments are essential to support New York's economic resurgence and future growth, as well as to provide the power necessary for a better quality of life for our customers," said Kevin Burke, president and chief executive officer of Con Edison Inc. "Over the past 10 years, electric usage in our service area has grown by nearly 20 percent, and continues to grow," Burke added.

Last year, New York City issued approximately 19 percent more building permits than the previous year. Home air conditioning use has increased dramatically, and customers are expected to install an additional 900,000 units over the next five years. In addition, power use is rising because customers are using more computers, printers, scanners, cell phone chargers, and other equipment at home for personal or business purposes. In 2004, the company estimated that its customers used more than 8 million televisions, 10.5 million cell phones, and 2.5 million personal computers.

The hot summer weather also resulted in several other power-use records, including:

    * the most electricity used in a single month - 6,648,182 megawatt hours
      for August;
    * the highest all-time peak demand - 13,059 megawatts on July 27;
    * the greatest summertime one-hour gas usage - 55,690 dekatherms on
      July 27;
    * consecutive weekday electricity consumption records on July 26 and 27;
    * most electricity used over a weekend on August 13 and 14;
    * the highest ever peak demand for a Saturday and for a Sunday;
    * seven of the top 10 days of most electricity used;
    * the five highest days of peak demand, and eight of the top 10 peak days.

The Con Edison system delivers electricity across a network of 92,000 miles of underground and nearly 33,000 miles of overhead wires, and sends natural gas through almost 4,300 miles of mains and nearly 400,000 service pipes to serve approximately 9 million New York City and Westchester County residents.

Con Edison is a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc. [NYSE: ED], one of the nation's largest investor-owned energy companies, with approximately $10 billion in annual revenues and $24 billion in assets. The utility provides electric, gas and steam service to more than 3 million customers in New York City and Westchester County, New York. For additional financial, operations and customer service information, visit Con Edison's Web site at www.coned.com.

SOURCE Con Edison -0- 09/04/2005 /CONTACT: Michael Clendenin, +1-212-460-4111, for Con Edison/ /Web site: http://www.coned.com / (ED)