With snow and a cold snap triggering several power outages across Brooklyn over the past two weeks, many residents have been forced to think about energy resiliency and how prepared the borough is for another weather-related power meltdown.
On Saturday night, hundreds of Con Edison customers lost power primarily in Bushwick, according to the utility's power outage map. Due to "an electric problem in some parts of Bushwick in Brooklyn, we had to shut off power temporarily to prevent more extended outages. We’re completing repairs as quickly as possible," the utility said on Saturday.
Although the majority of power was restored by Monday morning, Alyssa Gonzalez did not take any chances. The Bushwick resident said she was decamping to a cousin's house on Long Island, as she had to make sure she could log on to her remote job as an accountant, and provide warmth for her 7-month-old child.
"I didn't want to be stressed out waiting, wondering when the power to be back on," Gonzalez told BK Reader on Sunday. "If it was just me, then I might wait it out, but it's too cold for my baby. But my cousin said her power is on, and she also has a generator."
Gonzalez wondered how often she would have to find refuge: "Thank goodness I have another place to go."
Outages like this have been common since a major winter snowstorm hit the city on Jan. 25. First, a large number of residents in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick and Park Slope lost power. Then last week, a major power outage affected thousands of Con Ed customers in Boerum Hill and Park Slope.
One reason for the outage is when the snow melts and mixes with road salt, the mix seeps into the underground system, making contact with the electric delivery system and sometimes reaching the copper conductor in the cable. This can cause smoking and result in customers losing service, according to a Con Edison spokesperson.
One Brooklyn Health/Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center in Brownsville has been powered in part by a generator for over a week, a spokesperson from the hospital system confirmed.
First, a power feed to the hospital from Con Ed failed on Jan. 30, triggering the hospital's critical modular electrical power distribution system to sustain damage, the spokesperson said. The hospital then switched to using a backup generator. Then the backup generator failed at about 3:00am on Saturday, leading to a power outage that affecting the lights and elevators in certain parts of the hospital, the spokesperson said.
"A thorough assessment of all patient care units was conducted, revealing no significant impact on patient care or other critical services," the spokesperson said, noting the generator was fixed by 9:45am on Saturday.
Hospital staff and patients also sustained extreme heat last year when Brookdale's cooling system failed. The hospital declined to comment on whether they had plans to upgrade their heating and cooling infrastructure system in the future.
Many homeowners in the suburbs and rural areas have long used generators to power their homes when the electricity goes out, but urban dwellers are reliant on their building managers, co-op or condo boards to figure out how to be energy resilient when more people want to use power during extreme weather events.
Whether driven by extreme heat or cold, severe weather places enormous strain on the energy infrastructure, according to Samuel T. Frank, the founder of Resilient New York, a nonprofit.
But that doesn't mean that Con Ed can't do more to maintain and insulate the transmission lines on a regular basis so something like road salt doesn't affect the lines, he said.
Ultimately, it is better for New York to have diverse power sources, or one that includes, solar, wind and battery energy storage systems (BESS), to handle a society that is using more energy than ever.
Many communities have opposed building energy storage systems, fearing that they will catch on fire, despite a lengthy approval process from various city agencies, including the city Fire Department, that would prevent that.
"But just because something is a challenge, doesn't mean it's not necessary," Frank said.
This all comes at a time when Con Ed recently got state approval for customers to pay more for their power as it modernizes New York’s aging grid, both to withstand the growing impacts of climate change and to meet increasing demand for electricity as more buildings and vehicles transition away from fossil fuels. The utility has invested $2.3 billion to upgrade it's aging system in recent years, including spending $505 million on new transmission lines in parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island, and to build a BESS in Brownsville in 2025.
Jacques Morel Jr., a resident of Bedford-Stuyvesant, thinks his building's elevator issues are, in part, due to insufficient power. In the past month, the elevator, the primary mode to enter apartments, has malfunctioned three or four times, often spanning several days.
"It's very stressful thinking that every time you ride the elevator, you're worried that it's your turn to get stuck on it," Morel said, who fears for disabled and older New Yorkers during a power outage. "If an elevator is the primary way you get in and out of your home, you're at a loss if it keeps breaking down."
And when a building is poorly insulated and windows are not properly sealed, your monthly energy bill can be $700 to $900 per month if you use the [electric] central heating system," another resident of the building said.
"I only turn on the heat when guests come over," said the resident who asked to remain anonymous. "Otherwise, I use space heaters."
