Good morning. My name is Jan Childress, Director, Investor Relations. This presentation contains forward-looking statements that are intended to qualify for the safe harbor provisions of Section 27 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Forward-looking statements are statements of future expectations and not facts. Words such as forecasts, expects, estimates, anticipates, intends, believes, plans, will, target, guidance, and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements.
The forward-looking statements reflect information available and assumptions at the time the statements are made and speak only as of that time. Actual results or developments may differ materially from those included in the forward-looking statements because of various factors, such as those identified in reports the company has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including, but not limited to, that the company's subsidiaries are extensively regulated and are subject to penalties.
Its utility subsidiaries rate plans may not provide a reasonable return. It may be adversely affected by changes to the utility subsidiaries rate plans. The failure of processes and systems and the performance of employees and contractors could adversely affect it. The failure of, or damage to its subsidiaries' facilities could adversely affect it. A cyberattack could adversely affect it. It is exposed to risks from the environmental consequences of its subsidiaries' operations, including increased costs related to climate change.
A disruption in the wholesale energy markets or a failure by an energy supplier or customer could adversely affect it. It has substantial unfunded pension and other post-retirement benefit liabilities. It requires access to capital markets to satisfy funding requirements. Changes to tax laws could adversely affect it. Its strategies may not be effective to address changes in the external business environment.
It faces risks related to health epidemics and other outbreaks, including the COVID-19 pandemic, and it also faces other risks that are beyond its control. Con Edison assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements. Please note that there is an Ask a Question box right beneath the webcast player. Type in any questions you may have and click the submit button. Type them in anytime. I will be tracking them, and we will cycle through the questions as we get to the end of the program. Right now, it's my pleasure to turn the program over to Timothy Cawley, our President and CEO.
Good morning, all. Thank you so much, Jan. Thank you all for being with us today for our second annual ESG webinar. Hard to believe it was a year ago at this time. Much has happened since then. I hope you and your families are well as we collectively work through this ever-evolving pandemic. At Con Edison, we're focused on leading the nation's energy sector in the transition to a clean energy future. Today, we'll illustrate how we'll accomplish that really through two methods. The first is preparedness for the impacts of climate change, and the second is our execution of climate change mitigation measures.
This transition to a clean energy future will provide us with opportunities for growth and accrue benefits to our broad stakeholders and to our planet. Con Edison has evolved over nearly two centuries. Today, we're an organization structured to help our nation transition to the cleanest sources of energy available. We deliver, produce, and transmit an evolving mix of energy resources. On the chart on the far left, through our regulated utilities, Con Edison of New York and Orange and Rockland, we deliver electricity, natural gas, and steam to nearly 4 million customers in this great city of New York and the surrounding areas of Westchester, Orange, and Rockland Counties, and a portion of northern New Jersey.
These utilities form the core around which our clean energy commitment revolves. We produce energy, primarily solar and wind, through our clean energy businesses in the center of the slide. To the far right, Con Ed Transmission is a business that's focused on building and owning electric transmission to move renewable power from where it's produced to where it's needed, and to provide for a reliable, resilient grid for many years to come.
The efforts across the business units are aligned and focused on contributing to a more inhabitable planet for all of us. The evolution of Con Ed as an environmental leader has been long in the making, and we've got quite a history. As the longest continuously listed company on the New York Stock Exchange, Con Ed has played an integral role in our industry. This timeline provides lots of detail about the journey, and I'll hit on a few of the topics moving from left to right.
We were founded as a company in 1823, and we were known as the New York Gas Light Company. In 1882, we saw two milestones. The first was that we began to supply steam to customers in Manhattan, and the second is that our Pearl Street Station in downtown Manhattan became the first central power plant in the U.S. to generate electricity. We took several pivotal steps on our journey in 1971 and 1972, and at that time, I was quite young at the time, social environmental issues were top of mind, and the term ecology was used widely to describe these issues.
In 1971, we initiated our first energy conservation program, and we termed it Save-a-Watt. In 1972, almost 50 years ago, we completed the conversion of our coal plants. In both the coal plant conversion and energy conservation space, Con Edison was well ahead of its time. In 1999, we sold our utility-owned fossil fuel power plants as part of a New York State Public Service Commission restructuring plan that introduced resale choice. At that time, we kept only our steam generating units.
Unfortunately, the restrictions on utility ownership of generation put in place at that time remain in place today, and the restrictions are really a roadblock to us building and owning large-scale renewables, even in the face of New York State's aggressive clean energy agenda and our own success in building renewables outside of the state, and we'll talk more about that later. By 2008, we completed the strategic exit from our remaining merchant fleet fossil fuel plants, and at that time, we saw where things were going, and we pivoted to renewable generation.
In 2010, our first solar energy project went into service. In the years that followed, we really continued to evolve and greatly expand our energy efficiency and demand response programs, benefiting the environment and reducing customer bills. We called our efforts non-wire solutions, pursuing alternatives that meet growing needs of our customers while minimizing customer bill impact. In 2014, we built on that, by adding non-traditional utility and customer-sided solutions to our toolkit. Think battery storage, fuel cell, distributed renewable energy resources.
We focused on pursuing alternatives that were less costly and added an array of cleaner solutions to the grid. The New York State Public Service Commission's Reforming the Energy Vision, or REV, launched that year and provided new incentives for utilities and customers to pursue these clean energy alternatives. In 2018, our Smart Solutions for Gas Customers was the first formal program in the U.S. to incent customers to adopt heat pumps, renewable natural gas, geothermal, energy efficiency, and other alternatives to new natural gas infrastructure investment.
Most recently, we took another step to solidify our leadership in fighting climate change by completing our climate change vulnerability study and the associated resiliency and adaptation plan, which The New York Times recently upheld as gold standard for utilities nationwide. When I became President and CEO of Con Edison at the beginning of this year, I remained committed to our core of safety, operational excellence, and customer experience. We have a very complex energy delivery system, in this dense population, these three attributes will be needed forever.
I also recognize that while we've made good progress, a renewed focus on several areas would, number one, position us to lead the transition to the clean energy future, and two, allow us to be the company we aspire to be for our employees, our customers, and our shareholders. This slide really breaks it down into three columns. Under people, we'll advance our initiatives around diversity, equity, inclusion, and more proactively reach out to underserved communities. In the center column, planet, we'll rely on science-based assessment of climate change and aggressively focus on mitigation and adaptation strategies.
Finally, on the far right, profit, we'll maintain our strong financial underpinning while pursuing growth opportunities as we move to this clean energy future. I knew that we'd need to hold to well-defined metrics, accountability, and strong governance if we were to achieve our triple bottom line. Our people drive our success. It is wonderful to work with the group of folks I get to work with every day and have for north of 34 years. The pandemic is testing their resiliency and our resolve, and I am so proud to be able to lead this special group of individuals.
At Con Edison, we know that a diverse and inclusive company is a stronger, more successful company, and we're committed to making sure that every employee feels valued, respected, and included. We serve the most densely populated city in North America. Over 800 languages are spoken here, making New York one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the entire world. Over the years, we've made a concerted effort to capitalize on the wonderful diversity of our city through recruitment and employee development opportunities. Those efforts extend to the most senior levels.
We have a board mandate to consider diverse candidates for board membership and senior executive positions, the so-called Rooney Rule. Job enrichment helps us retain talented people and allows them to reach their full potential. We provide tuition reimbursement, skills training, mentoring, promotional opportunities, and a wide range of benefits for retention and upward mobility. We have a dedicated learning center in Queens, really it's our central campus, through which we offer instructor-led and virtual training for our employees.
Many of our team come in at the entry level and finish their careers much higher on the chain. We provide award-winning support for veterans and employees in active duty or the reserves. We work with parents to achieve work-life balance, and that work-life balance is particularly important as we work our way through this pandemic. We have scholarships, internships, and job shadowing programs for young people to enrich their experience at Con Edison. To add structure and rigor to our commitment, we've developed a 14-point action plan focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
This year, our Board approved associated diversity, equity, and inclusion metrics tied to executive compensation. Our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is part of our contribution to the overall good of society. I'll move now to planet. Our innovative engaged team is focused on combating climate change and ensuring a clean energy future for the broad community. This is a shot of our rooftop at our headquarter building in downtown Manhattan in Union Square, and it shows the solar panels. We really installed them for two reasons. One was to model the behavior. We're really stressing, and providing opportunities for our customers to go green.
We wanted to understand from the customer perspective what that installation process felt like. In August of 2020, when we held our inaugural webinar, our region had just recovered from a historically destructive Tropical Storm Isaias, and it really ravaged the U.S. from the Carolinas to Vermont. If you turn the news on at any point on any day, you'll see that wildfires, severe temperatures, drought, and flooding have become all too commonplace across the entire globe.
Last week, a report was issued by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that report, prepared by 234 scientists from around the globe, concluded that human influence has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in the last 2,000 years. Our approach to climate change is twofold, mitigation through various measures to cut emissions and adaptations through the design, construction, and operation of more resilient systems.
We mitigate the impacts for future generations by reducing our Scope I, II, and III emissions, those for which we are directly responsible and indirectly responsible. Scope III includes those emissions resulting from customer use of electric, gas, and steam that we deliver to them. That Scope III challenge is the focus of our clean energy commitment. We're targeting 100% clean electricity by 2040. We're also building zero carbon electric production, solar and wind. In fact, through our Con Edison Clean Energy Businesses, we're the second largest producer of solar energy in North America.
For our gas and steam, as well as electricity, we're in the process of developing carbon reduction strategies that will be incorporated into our long-range plans. We'll have those available in early 2022. We work with National Grid and the City of New York in a Pathways to Carbon Neutral New York City study that examined the commodities currently used to meet the city's energy needs. We're just completing work with McKinsey that would map out our pathways to carbon neutrality for our gas system. Our second approach to climate change is resiliency and adaptation.
We've taken the global climate science and applied it locally to measure the impacts on our systems. We'll have a lot more to say about both the study and the adaptation plans later in the program. The third prong is really about profitability, ensuring Con Ed's strong, stable financial underpinning is a key to longevity and a necessary ingredient sustaining our commitment to our people and our planet. We'll continue to maintain a strong balance sheet to finance the work needed to adapt our structure and to pursue clean energy investment opportunities.
Maintaining a sustainable dividend payout will help us to attract new investors as individuals and institutions gravitate towards socially responsible companies. Our investment approach favors lower-risk investments consistent with the shareholder base, which disproportionately includes income-oriented individual shareholders. We're also keenly focused on the customer and affordability. We must manage our costs to minimize the customer bill impact. Our business case for allowing utilities to build and own large-scale renewables right here in New York State is simple. Utility ownership is the most cost-beneficial option for our customers.
Our value-oriented strategic approach to enhancing profitability grows out of the three principles I mentioned earlier, providing safe, reliable service, enhancing the customer experience, and relentlessly pursuing operational excellence and cost optimization. At Con Ed, we're committed to ensuring that the transition to a clean energy future is both equitable and inclusive. I'll share a few examples from this slide that we've implemented to bring the benefits of that transition to underserved communities.
In the top, the Community Power Program, we've installed solar panels on the roofs of NYCHA development housing. The installation work is performed by NYCHA residents, that provides them with skills and a career path in a very growing field. The low and moderate-income customers can subscribe to the power generated from these solar panels, saving them money and importantly, allowing them to participate in this transition.
In the center, it's our Clean Energy Academy. We've partnered with Willdan and NYSERDA to train almost 300 people, many from underserved communities, to become clean energy professionals. Again, this is a growing field, and it provides them with more than a job, a career path. Lastly, we've really pushed hard in introducing energy efficiency measures to low and moderate-income customers. It is a harder group to gain traction with for a number of reasons, and our team have overcome a number of challenges and have gotten really strong results. That means lower costs for those residents and a much better quality of life for them as well.
These are just a few examples, but we continue to push in and make sure that as we transition to this clean energy future, no community is left behind. We've a long history of greenhouse gas emissions, and a long history of the stewardship that has yielded very strong results. We've reduced our direct greenhouse gas emissions by 54% since 2005. Since 2009, more than 1 million of our electric and gas customers have benefited from energy efficiency programs, preventing 7 million metric tons of carbon emissions. That's the equivalent of taking about 1 million cars off the road. We'll talk more about this later in the program.
While these accomplishments are significant, the UN report underscores the need to accelerate this path to a net zero emissions, and that acceleration is not lost on us. We're also committed to the planet through our clean energy production. If you take a look at the chart, as I mentioned earlier, we've converted our coal plants almost 50 years ago, and today 70% of the company-owned generation is renewable, solar and wind. We own no coal, and we own no nuclear power. This fuel mix on the bottom stands in sharp contrast to the fuel mix allocated to our electric delivery businesses by the New York Independent System Operator, which is about 50% natural fuel-based.
There's work to be done to reduce this number at the state level, and we stand ready to build and own renewable resources to benefit our New York customers, improve the air quality and mitigate climate change. Climate change, as noted in the UN report, is widespread, rapid and intensifying, and some trends are now irreversible. Our hope today is that you'll clearly see my priorities and the company's guiding principles are central to our response to climate change. We're going to address the issues as broadly as we can in the time allotted.
This is a big topic, and so we want to hit on the highlights over the next hour or so. I'll be joined by Kathy Boden. She's our Vice President of Gas Operations, Bob Sanchez, our President of Orange and Rockland. Mark Noyes, President of our Clean Energy Businesses. Robert Hoglund, Senior VP and Chief Financial Officer, and Yukari Saegusa, our Vice President and Treasurer. The disturbing finding in the United Nations report are thought to be a wake-up call for all of us, but really for us at Con Edison, our wake-up call came about a decade ago.
We had two extreme weather events, Irene and Sandy, that really rocked our service areas and ultimately were the early pushers for the development of our landmark climate change vulnerability study and our associated resiliency and adaptation plan. To discuss the plan, I'll introduce Cathy, and Cathy's listed here as Vice President of Gas Operations. I am thrilled to announce that Cathy's been promoted to Senior Vice President of Gas Operations effective October 1st. Well deserved, Cathy. I'm thrilled for our employees, our customers, and our shareholders. You're going to do a great job. Thanks.
Thank you, Tim, over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to be involved with the internal team that worked with ICF, Columbia University, and Jupiter Intelligence on the company's climate change vulnerability study. We augmented our team with an external working group of stakeholders that included members from the New York State Department of Public Service staff, the City of New York, the Mayor's Office of Climate and Sustainability, several environmental groups, many customer groups, and many internal and external experts.
As Tim said, the wake-up call for our pursuit of this study occurred in late October of 2012. I remember it well. As Hurricane Sandy roared from the tropics just south of Jamaica, gathering force over the Atlantic Ocean before touching down in the middle Atlantic states with enough strength to be reclassified as a super storm. Sandy was the most devastating storm in our company's history, with storm surges unlike anything we had ever seen. Take a look at this photo. Who can forget it? This was front-page news. Literally cars floating in parking garages, underground parking garages in Manhattan.
Sandy occurred just one year after Hurricane Irene. Irene was, at the time, the worst storm in our company's history, as measured by customer outages, and it held that distinction for only a year. Irene and Sandy, each viewed alone, were thought to be once in 100-year events. How could our region be hit in the back-to-back years with natural disasters of such magnitude? We really had to find the answers, and we wanted to understand the climate-related questions and the things that were happening, but first we had to harden our energy systems.
After Sandy, we invested more than $1 billion for storm hardening in all of our systems, gas, electric, and steam, and even communication, telecom. In 2018, we had committed another $100 million investment following a pair of nor'easters, Riley and Quinn, that came one on top of the other. These two winter storms were among four nor'easters that hit the Northeast over the span of three weeks, bringing record-breaking snowfall, coastal flooding, and strong winds. By the time these nor'easters hit, we were literally in the throes of our climate change vulnerability study.
Sandy prompted us to examine the risks of climate change using the latest climate projection design pathways and to formulate a resiliency and adaptation plan based on the most current science. Over the three years we worked with ICF, Columbia, Jupiter, and our external group, including the City of New York and DPS staff, and we collaborated with climate scientists and reviewed the latest climate studies. We evaluated Con Edison's present-day infrastructure, our present design specifications, our operational procedures, and we looked at those against a range of projected climate change scenarios.
We needed to take sort of the global perspective of climate change and bring it to our specific geography, and we did that by using three geographic points, three weather stations, one at LaGuardia Airport in Queens, one at Westchester Airport, and one at Central Park in Manhattan. We were able to identify the following climate-related risks that would affect our infrastructure. Extreme heat, sea level rise, coastal storm surge, flooding from intense rainfall, hurricane strength winds. None of this is really a surprise as we've been seeing these scenarios emerging across our globe.
What did come as a surprise was the intensity and frequency of the climate scenarios. I'll get to that in a moment. First, I want to talk a little bit about our approach before we get into this slide. We all know that the amount of greenhouse gases we're collectively releasing into the atmosphere contribute to global warming and the conditions identified as the most significant climate-driven risks. We worked with the climate scientists to select climate change pathways to address a range of variables like extreme temperatures.
There are certain pathways that are evaluated in the industry, and they're called Representative Concentration Pathways. We used as our base case an RCP, Representative Concentration Pathway, which equates to the 2 degree Celsius global warming benchmark set by the Paris Accord. This pathway assumes climate change mitigation efforts limit global warming to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
We selected as our stressed test scenario, sort of our worst case, an RCP of 8.5. This pathway represents where we are today and where we are headed without any mitigation of greenhouse gases. RCP 8.5 corresponds to a more extreme 4 degree Celsius global warming scenario. In examining our system's vulnerabilities, we move beyond the 2 degree to look at an even worse case to make sure that we're planning for the future and not just looking back at history.
You can see plotted on the graph for an RCP of 8.5 temperature pathways, the 90th, 75th, and 50th percentiles in comparison to the projection derived from the New York City Panel on Climate Change. You can see that all these curves pretty much line up. They're just a few degrees apart. There's a high level of confidence in these curves, and we have confidence that the 75th percentile is an adequate target based on general industry acceptance. It also aligns with the pathway being used regionally by the City of New York and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, as well as other groups.
This pathway gives us targets for system design so that we are rightfully prepared, rather than being over or worse, under-prepared. This is where we landed in our adaptation plan. Using these selected pathways, we were able to measure the frequency and intensity of projected climate change consequences for our service territory. If we take extreme heat as an example, today, in a typical summer, we can expect four days of temperatures that exceed 95 degrees Fahrenheit.
The science and our analysis is telling us that by 2030, we could have 11 days of extreme heat on average each summer. By 2050, that number could rise to 23 days, almost a third of the summer. These forecasts have design and planning implications for our systems. For instance, heat impacts the capacity of electrical equipment such as transformers and cables. Longer, deeper heat waves also hinder the ability of this equipment to recover or cool off, and this has implications for reliability.
Increases in extreme heat over time also impact our system's peak design, and we develop load forecasts that go out 20 years and beyond. Using the data from our study, our best estimate is that the temperature variable, which is a measure that accounts for humidity, and is something that we use to plan and operate by, that will increase 1 degree Fahrenheit every decade. Just for information, 1 degree temperature variable is worth about 250 MW-300 MW of peak load in the summer for Con Ed.
All things being equal, everything remain the same, our electric peak demand, which currently is about 13,000 MW, could be as high as almost 14,000 MW in 2050 due to climate change. Another factor, another risk is rising sea level, and the pathways related to sea level rise are depicted on the graph. Scientists have a little less confidence in these pathways due to many uncertain variables. You can see that in the broader separation between the percentiles. We decided based on consultation on the 50th percentile. This corresponds to the pathways adopted by many regional entities.
By having targeted pathways, our planners and designers now have life cycle information to guide their designs going forward, and we're no longer just relying on our historical storms and the past. The analysis for sea level. Next slide, please. The analysis for sea level, when we take the data, you can see here we could see a rise of 1.3 ft over the next 30 years, and that's compared to less than 1 ft rise over the previous 30 years, which is a bit scary and certainly extreme. These forecasts have implications for equipment life and planning around flood zones.
While the work we did following Superstorm Sandy will protect many company facilities until 2040, these forecasts mean more, bigger, and higher walls, flood walls, more submersible equipment, and other measures to keep floodwater from compromising our energy systems. Our peak demand forecast procedures have been updated to capture the effects of climate change on these peaks, and our energy volume forecast procedures will be updated during this year's cycle to capture the effects of climate change on energy use. We're also applying the climate science to our system designs.
With new business, as we add new customers to the grid, our engineers are designing assets to withstand climate change impacts through expected lives. We're designing to thresholds defined in our guideline. For example, if an asset is expected to live until 2080, it must be built to withstand 3 ft of sea level rise rather than 1 ft of sea level rise as currently specified after Sandy. The same can be said with the replacement of existing assets due to failure or preemptive removal.
The lifespan of the replacement must be considered in the design, and it must correspond to the criteria defined in the new guideline. We'll assess existing asset lives against this criteria and upgrade as necessary through incremental resilience-related programs. There may be assets built prior to standards that are not addressed by replacements or upgrades. Think of an asset near retirement or one that's in an area being modified that hasn't yet been modified.
The climate risk to these areas may be addressed with operational measures, that may be more cost-effective or act as interim measures such as sandbags or temporary relocation to offer protection through the period of risk until the storm passes and until a permanent solution is put in place. An example of this, we can illustrate here. This is how the guideline is being integrated into design specifications. Pretty simple example, but we're looking at a vertical design flood elevation and the impact of sea level rise due to climate change.
On the left side, the standard in place before our study requires that flood protections be designed to FEMA + 3. That is a base flood elevation, which is the FEMA 100-year flood, + 1 ft of sea level rise, and in consultation and by recommendation for New York City, adding another 2 ft for more conservative contingency design. In the depiction on the left, you can see the stoop provides enough height that if the water flood reaches it will not enter the facility.
Now based on the pathway in our new plan, using 2100 as an example for future standard, any structures or assets surviving to 2100 will require a FEMA + 5 or a FEMA 100-year flood + 3 ft of sea level rise and 2 ft for contingency. As you can see from the depiction on the right, this would prompt us to build a flood-proof door into this facility to keep rising floodwater out. The guidelines in our plan establish lifecycle changes like sea level rise to be used by engineers as a reference for designing a resilient system now, so we may be ready for whatever the future brings.
We expect that any of the investments to fortify our systems will occur incrementally over time as higher standards are designed into construction plans. There are other factors that could impact the investment needed. For instance, actions undertaken in pursuit of our Clean Energy Commitment will invariably impact the design of our system. We'll be factoring in impacts of electrification of space heating and electric vehicles on the system, and the potentially higher winter peak system design resulting from these changes will certainly have design and cost implications.
Hopefully, global measures will mitigate some future effects of climate change. To measure that, we will incorporate future science-based climate forecasts into our implementation plan to keep it fresh and viable. We want this process to be sustainable. This is not a plan you put on the shelf. It's constantly evolving. We're constantly looking at the science. Our plan includes a governance component to provide the oversight, guidance, and support to keep it sustainable.
Our new corporate instruction on climate adaptation governs how the company will integrate climate change information into our procedures for designing, building, and investing in resilient infrastructure, as well as planning for emergency weather events. Con Edison's Board oversees the company's policies related to climate change. The corporate leadership team, which includes our CEO, Presidents, all the Senior Vice Presidents, they provide the senior executive oversight.
Then an executive committee of company Vice Presidents from all over the company, the three commodities, gas, electric, steam, and also all of the support groups, they oversee the implementation of the strategies and incorporating the climate change projections throughout the company. There is a permanent climate risk and resilience group in place that's monitoring the climate change science, was involved in the original study, and is assisting operating groups with the day-to-day implementation of adaptation activities to put our findings and recommendations into action.
Now, our resiliency and adaptation plan and subsequent climate science updates will be incorporated in our long-range business planning process, along with our climate change mitigation strategies. The climate change mitigation permeates our entire organization. It is literally the crux of our clean energy commitment. To start the conversation, it's my pleasure to introduce Bob Sanchez, the President and CEO of Orange and Rockland Utilities. Bob?
Thank you, Katherine, good morning, everyone. Con Edison's commitment to clean energy is both national and local in scope. I'm going to focus on our energy delivery businesses located principally in New York State and parts of northern New Jersey. Between CECONY and O&R, we deliver about 44% of New York State's electricity. We have the largest district steam system in the U.S., we deliver natural gas to about 1.2 million customers. Safety is our top priority. Since 2009, we're very happy to say we've continued on our mission of improving our safety performance.
Employee injuries are down by over 75% in both companies, we'll continue to focus on achieving a zero-accident workplace. Our passion for safety extends equally to the public we serve. We're also committed to providing reliable service to our customers and have achieved recognition for this focus. We take great pride in our reliability, which is the best in the United States. We invest $3 billion each in our energy systems using a risk-based approach.
We're deploying sensors, using robotics to monitor our system, applying analytics, and using technologies to achieve the operational excellence that our customers deserve. We're a clean energy company with strong financials, committed to a sustainable future, as we continue to advance our clean energy commitment. Next slide, please. Our clean energy commitment starts with focuses on climate change mitigation areas in four areas.
Energy efficiency, where we're tripling our investments by 2025, 100% clean electricity by 2040 through the development of renewable energy storage, and associated transmission, and a robust electric vehicle Make-Ready Program, and a reduction in fossil fuels for heating through a number of programs, like energy efficiency and investments in emerging technologies. I'll talk more about that in a few. On slide 28, please.
Our commitment complements state and local environmental goals. New York State's goal includes carbon-free power by 2040, along with specific targets identified on the slide for emission reductions, energy storage, electric vehicles, and renewable electricity like solar and offshore wind. On slide 29, we'll show that we have a multi-billion dollar commitment to help our state and localities realize their goals. Energy efficiency is the cleanest technology because it's energy avoided.
We have plans to invest $1.5 billion in energy efficiency by 2025, and programs supporting all of our customers. The benefit of our smart meters are far reaching. Net cumulative savings of $1 billion over the life of the assets for our customers, greater customer choice with near real-time intelligence to manage energy storage, and the ability to incorporate dispatchable distributed energy resources in the grid are just some of the examples that I could share that we're seeing the benefits from the smart meter program. We have also linked the smart meters into our customer outage system for storm response.
We've reduced truck rolls, resulting in reduced vehicle emissions and faster restoration times. Smart meters also make it possible for more interactive rate designs. That's going to send the right message and signals to customers to be efficient with their energy consumption. We have over $300 million investments to electric vehicles charging plugs through 2025. We're transitioning our fleet of light duty vehicles to electric vehicles, and we're working on the country's first all-electric bucket truck. It's an important first step towards decarbonizing the heavy duty vehicle sector. In addition, we're exploring low carbon alternatives for our gas system.
We're an anchor sponsor for the EPRI- GTI study on low carbon fuel alternatives such as green hydrogen, and we're providing incentives to our natural gas customers to switch to low carbon alternatives like heat pumps, renewable natural gas, and geothermal. On slide 30, as Tim mentioned, our commitment to the clean energy future includes a focus on our own operation. As our sustainability report shows, we've reduced our Scope I emissions by 54% since 2005. These include direct greenhouse gas emissions from company-owned sources, such as our steam generating facilities.
Our Scope I emissions, though, are very small by industry standards, 2.7 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent, or just to give you a level set there, it's less than 10% compared to our peer group average. This is because our generation fleet is largely comprised of renewables. Solar and wind plants that are owned by the CEBs comprise 70% of our generation capacity, and our fossil fuel plants that produce steam and electricity make up the remaining 30%. Our steam plants account for about 85% of our Scope I emissions, and the remaining direct emissions are from sulfur hexafluoride or SF6 gas, this is a dielectric medium that's used in electric equipment, and methane emissions from our gas mains.
We have programs underway to reduce both SF6 and methane emissions. We worked with EPRI to develop a new SF6 leak sealing technique. This effort, in partnering with the EPA, has enabled us to achieve a 98% reduction in SF6 emissions since 1996. We're a founding partner of EPA's Natural Gas STAR Methane Challenge program, with the aim of reducing methane emissions from gas distribution systems. In CECONY's densely populated service area, we practice aggressive leak management by conducting monthly inspections of our entire gas main system, fixing leaks, even those that are deemed non-hazardous by federal and state regulations.
We've developed and are rolling out perhaps one of the most important new safety emission reduction devices for our natural gas system, and that's our natural gas detectors, and that's enabled by our smart meter communication network. It's providing us 24/7 methane monitoring in customers' homes, resulting into nearly immediate response and detecting leaks both inside and outside the homes. Lastly, we continue to replace leak-prone pipes at an accelerated pace.
As a matter of fact, at O&R, we're going to complete our priority pipe replacement program by 2029. CECONY is on schedule to finish by 2038. On slide 31, we'll transition to our steam system. We operate the largest steam system in the U.S., serving 3 million New Yorkers. More than 60% of our steam production is from high-efficiency cogeneration units. These cogen units produce electricity as a byproduct of the steam that's produced for the CECONY steam distribution system. Steam serves many of the iconic skyscrapers and cultural institutions in Manhattan. Cogeneration reduces carbon emissions by approximately 25% of what would have otherwise been emitted through traditional boilers.
That's equivalent to removing about 200,000 vehicles from the road every year. Steam operations is also very proactive in several efforts aimed at reducing its carbon footprint. We're benchmarking with other district systems in global cities that are leveraging their district energy networks to achieve their carbon reduction goals. We've also established initial list of carbon reduction technologies that we're going to determine the feasibility and implementation, whether we include it in our systems.
We're looking at alternative fuel sources, production via electric boilers with renewable energy, expansion and/or conversion of hot water systems, and wasted heat water recovery sources as well. Next on slide 32, I'm going to concentrate on Scope II and III emissions. These, as Tim mentioned, they're the indirect greenhouse emissions associated with delivery of our end use of our commodities to the customers. Think of the electricity, the gas, and steam not produced by our own facilities, but delivered by us to our customers.
This is the bulk of our Scope III emissions, which is totaled, you'll see it on the right-hand side of the other slide, 29.5 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent by the end of 2020. Our 100% clean electricity target in 2020 addresses the Scope III emissions. Our energy efficiency initiatives, coupled with our smart meters, are just part of our strategy. Assisting our customers in installing clean, distributed resources like rooftop solar is another tool.
We have about 46,000 customers between the two companies that have installed clean alternatives. Our Smart Solutions for Gas Customers is a program aimed at lowering emissions as well as avoiding costly new infrastructure investments on behalf of the customers. These initiatives have measurable impacts, but the majority of the Scope III emission reductions associated with the electricity system is going to need to come from large-scale renewable resources, battery storage, and associated transmission.
For the gas and steam systems, new technology, entirely new different approaches to energy delivery is going to be needed. Seeking clean energy alternatives, we have a renewable natural gas project under development in Mount Vernon, New York, that's going to be in service, projected to be in service by the end of 2023. This project is going to use food waste and will be capable of providing up to 1 million dekatherms for our gas system. On slide three, I want to highlight some of our clean energy accomplishments, some of them that you may be able to see.
New York City Local Law 97 requires large buildings of 25 sq ft or above to reduce emissions by 40% by 2030 and 80% by 2050. We have the tools to assist our customers in buildings, whether they're large or small, and really to help them become greener. An example I want to share with you is CECONY and their partners have completed the largest electric efficiency retrofit at an office building that has been undertaken. The One Court Square retrofit in Long Island City, Queens, will reduce carbon emissions, lower demand on a local power grid, and save customers money.
We have provided incentives towards the $5.8 million project, which was to upgrade the HVAC system. Really the end result is the facility is going to end up cutting their electricity consumption by at least 20%. At O&R, we assisted Rockland Community College with a major retrofit that will increase the college's energy efficiency and achieve peak load reduction on the grid, saving the college about $650,000 a year. These projects are all win-win-win scenarios for the customers, the environments, and our stakeholders as well.
On slide 34, our electric vehicle Make-Ready Program is aimed at the largest contributor to statewide greenhouse gas emissions, and that's the transportation sector. There's only about 26,000 electric vehicles on the road in our service area. That's less than 1% of the vehicles that are registered statewide. In one of the largest state initiatives in the United States, second only to California, two of our utilities, both CECONY and O&R, will be working on a $300 million+ project, and this is with the marketplace, to install more than 21,000 charging plugs by 2025.
Other initiatives include sponsoring a pilot that uses electric school buses as batteries during the peak summer months when the buses are not in service, providing electric vehicle owners with a free connected device that reads charging information and offers significant rebates for any off-peak charging, and automating cost-effective charging for customers through the SmartCharge program.
These initiatives, coupled with other net zero carbon efforts aimed at space heating, will increase the usage of electricity and could shift the traditional peak from summer to winter. As we're planning for the carbon neutral economy, we will be prepared, and we're going to remain focused on delivering safe, reliable service that our customers want and deserve. On slide 35, battery storage has been a very valuable tool in our non-wire solutions, part of our portfolio.
As we transition away from fossil fuels, there's a growing need for battery storage to help support the intermittency of clean resources. CECONY is partnering with a third party, 174 Power, in the largest battery storage project in the state. The 100 MW storage facility in Corona, Queens, will be installed on a former site of a fossil fuel plant. Both utilities, earlier this month, also issued requests for proposals for another 210 MW of storage. At O&R, we have about 6 MW of battery storage operating in our service territory today, half of which are owned by us as part of a successful non-wire solution projects.
That's part of a portfolio that we're looking to work on going forward. We also have an innovative program on the way with Sunrun, where we're going to be deploying rooftop solar and battery systems as part of an innovative virtual power plant project supporting New York's transition to the clean and reliable systems. On slide 36, battery storage is an important part of our plans to develop new clean solutions. This effort involves our utilities as well as our clean energy business. As Tim mentioned, our utilities are limited by the state regulation in building and owning large scale renewables and batteries in New York.
We're making our case to the New York State Public Service Commission to lift these restrictions. We believe that allowing us to invest in renewables in the state will lower the cost for our customers, ensure long-term availability of the assets for our customers, and accelerate the progress to help us all meet the carbon neutral goals. To talk more about our efforts outside of New York as a developer of renewable energy, I'd like to introduce Mark Noyes, the President and CEO of Con Edison Clean Energy Businesses. Mark?
Thanks, Bob. Good morning, everyone. The Clean Energy Businesses, often referred to as the CEBs, are leading the clean energy commitment for not only for Con Edison, but for the industry. The way that we're doing that is with a disciplined platform, a business platform, that can focus on renewables, it can focus on retail energy services, as well as wholesale energy services, the full elements and components to sustainability. We have a very disciplined approach to our investment. We've been at this for over two decades with a major focus on renewables for well over a decade now.
We are positioned for growth, and growth in the renewable industry as well as the services industry, and we have delivered already significant environmental benefits to the country and to the world. Next slide, please. We maintain a market leadership. We are the second largest owner-operator of solar in North America. We are the seventh largest in the world, 13th largest from solar and wind combined, in North America. As you can see, more than 11 million PV panels. That covers 43,000 acres. Just to give you a little context of that, if you put the panels end to end, that would cover the borough of Manhattan three times. Significant investment in the renewable space.
We have distinctive and distinct competitive advantages. One is scale, and scale is critical. We also have significant relationships and partnerships, which allow us to do great things with equipment, technology, innovation, purchase power, et c. One of our key advantages is we self-perform both operations and maintenance, and asset management, which really helps us deliver on availability, and a whole host of innovation. Next slide, please.
We have diversity amongst the CEBs. We are operating in 20 different states, with assets in all of those states, as well as offices. Our mix is 85% solar at this point and 15% wind. We've begun bringing in battery storage, as well as some other of the more nascent technologies. We have 200 projects across the country, all with long-term contracts. The average remaining life of our contracted assets is in excess of 18 years. All of these are with solid creditworthy counterparties, and once again, very much positioned to grow further in the future.
Next slide. We have, as I mentioned, a decade of experience in this space. We started our journey in 2009 with a major focus on the Northeast and some smaller projects. In the 2014, 2015 timeframe, we expanded, not only geographically, across the rest of the states away from the Northeast, but we also started to move further down the stream of renewables into the Greenfield, the development area. We've built that section of the business from 2014 through today, which really allows us to have a very robust business that is predictable, and we can count on revenues moving forward.
In 2019, we added two additional components, battery storage to the strategy, as well as develop, transfer, or what's commonly referred to in the industry as design, build, transfer. You can see on the far right on the 2021, we're forecasted to bring in about 500 MW of renewable assets this year. I'm happy to announce that we've completed those, and we're beginning to work on our 2022 efforts. Next slide. Our strategy aligns, at the CEBs with CEI, low risk, low volatile business model, again, consistent with the utility. We have the platform and the expertise. We focus on long-term PPAs, typically 20 years in length or greater.
We leverage with non-recourse debt, and we also bring in tax equity where necessary. We have a strong development pipeline, which helps us guarantee or at least put us in a good place for our future growth. We have returns that are commensurate with what you'd expect for the risk-adjusted return and those that are better than the utility. That allows us to really expect and perform for long-term, steady, predictable earnings. Next slide, please. Our pipeline is over 3 GW, and that's 3 GW . There are no bragawatts in there. We can count on this high degree of success across this pipeline.
As you can see in the lower right, we're expected to deliver on $400 million of capital investment during the next three-year window. I'm happy to comment that we have complete line of sight to all three years of those assets. The major risk there is just that of construction and performing on the asset components, which we have a great track record of performing. We also have, again, the pipeline that allows us to continue to build out, to develop for the future years, 2023, 2024, 2025, and beyond. We have the optionality with the pipeline to either hold and own or to go ahead and develop and transfer to others.
Next slide, please. The battery storage component is really a nascent market, but it's the fastest growing market and really creates a great growth opportunity for us in the future. Pairing batteries with storage are also very critical to the success of the renewable industry as a whole. Standalone batteries are also a key element for resiliency, capacity, etc . We expanded our efforts through an acquisition. In 2018, we acquired the Johnson Controls battery division and their intellectual property.
We have the ability to test batteries, to utilize the software, and grow our platform in a disciplined manner. We've been recognized by Guidehouse as the ranked number fifth for C&I battery storage, commercial and industrial battery storage, and ranked number six from a utility scale perspective in battery storage. Once again, we're looking to be a leader in this market and really help drive this industry. We are currently executing on many battery storage contracts. We just finished a combined battery storage with solar in Nevada and brought that online over the last several months.
Next slide, please. From an innovation standpoint, it's very critical to our business and all of the businesses in this space. We have proven operational excellence. We are an operating company, have been for 200 years. The culture we've brought into the renewable space for the last 20 years, very much operational focused, safety focused, and we certainly innovate in that area to maintain high availability, reliability, resiliency, et c. We have state-of-the-art diagnostics, state-of-the-art technology, which allows us to continue to meet and beat our performance.
We have an innovative approach to repowering our assets as they get older or technology gets to a point whereby repowering makes sense, and we have a targeted approach to that as well. That concludes the efforts of the CEBs. I'm very proud of the work that the team has done to advance the clean energy space. For our final component on the clean energy space, we like to talk about transmission, getting clean energy resources to the customer. For that final component, I'd like to introduce Robert Hoglund, the SVP and CFO of the company. Robert also serves as the Chairperson for the CET, our Transmission division, as well as my division, the clean energy businesses. Robert?
Great. Thanks, Mark. As Mark said, Con Ed's strategy for transmission is to connect renewable electricity production facilities to end-use consumers. There's a lot of existing generation in this country that needs to be converted or outright replaced for us to get to carbon neutrality. You can see from the graphic just how far New York State and our nation must go to get to clean electricity. Fossil fuel-burning plants still make up nearly 60% of our nation's electric generation, including 20% sourced from coal plants. In New York, despite major inroads into the development of renewable energy production, legacy hydro represents 23% of our current electric production, and renewables are less than 6%.
As Bob and Mark showed, Con Edison is equipped to move the state and national agendas forward by building renewable electricity production. We are also capable of providing electric transmission solutions. With Upper New York Bay and the Hudson, Harlem, and East Rivers dividing New York City's five boroughs, Con Edison has proven expertise in underwater transmission as well as land-based transmission. We plan to invest approximately $1 billion between now and 2025 in electric transmission projects that provide reliability and resiliency and advance New York's clean energy objectives.
At Con Edison Transmission, we are investing in a FERC-regulated project that will relieve congested electricity flows between Albany and New York City. This project, New York Energy Solution, will facilitate the delivery of renewably produced electricity from upstate sources to metropolitan New York City. The project will be owned by New York Transco, which is a partnership of investor-owned utilities in the state. Con Edison owns approximately 46% of this New York Transco project. The cost of the project is estimated at $600 million, with Con Edison's share being $274 million.
This estimate does not include interconnection costs. Those costs will be determined later but are expected to exceed $100 million. The project is currently under construction and is scheduled to be in service by the end of 2023. The company's second transmission investment is being made by CECONY. It is called the Reliable Clean City and is regulated by the Public Service Commission. As the name implies, this project has the dual benefits of replacing emissions-heavy peaker plants and maintaining the reliability of our transmission grid.
The Reliable Clean City will strengthen the transmission system within New York City to compensate for the expected loss of 1,400 MW of peaker facilities whose emissions exceed federal NOx limits. The project has three parts and will cost a total of $780 million. The first part has an expected in-service date of May 2023. The other two parts are expected to be in service by May 2025. The Reliable Clean City represents another important step in improving the air quality in New York City and surrounding areas. The Reliable Clean City was first proposed as part of a filing that the New York transmission owners jointly made with the New York State Public Service Commission in late 2020.
The joint filing was in response to a New York State Public Service Commission order that directed transmission owners to develop plans for the New York State electric grid that would support the state's climate mandates as codified in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019 and the Accelerated Renewable Energy Growth and Community Benefit Act of 2020. The Reliable Clean City was approved as one of a handful of immediately actionable proposals that supported the state's objectives.
Con Edison also proposed six transmission projects and two distribution projects that require additional business case analysis. These transmission projects would cost $4 billion and add 7,700 MW of capacity to the state's transmission system. The proposed distribution projects were estimated to cost $1.3 billion. As a group, the New York State transmission-owning utilities proposed almost $8 billion in transmission projects under this filing. Unlike the Reliable Clean City project, the broad benefits that are expected to accrue from the second set of proposals could make cost-sharing among the utilities appropriate.
The projects could also be subject to competitive bidding. New York City, given its population density and location on an ocean coast, will strongly benefit from the construction of offshore wind resources in order to achieve 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040. Regionally, New York and New Jersey are seeking to put more than 16,000 MW of offshore wind in service by 2035. We are exploring opportunities to support our region in meeting clean energy targets through offshore wind by evaluating transmission opportunities.
We have experience with both underground electric transmission at scale and with wet transmission since we serve the largest city in the U.S., a city literally divided by water. Over the course of this webinar, we have taken you through our path to clean energy, identifying the opportunities in our three lines of business, electricity production, energy transmission, and energy delivery. Between 2021 and 2023, we plan to invest nearly $13 billion across our business lines. One third of that capital investment, or $4.2 billion, is dedicated to clean energy, from energy efficiency to solar and wind development.
That green investment also includes smart meters that promote energy savings and gas main replacement that reduces methane emissions. Another $200 million in green spending, counted as regulatory assets rather than capital, is associated with incenting customers to adopt green technologies. The domination of more traditional capital expenditures for safety and reliability reflects our core principles that Tim discussed earlier.
I will remind you of two points. First, we operate the largest underground electric system in the nation that costs multiples of what an overhead system would cost to build and maintain. Second, that same system provides, by far, the best electric reliability to the densest service territory of any utility in the nation. With New York State's commitment as embodied in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019 and Con Edison's clean energy commitment, there are many opportunities for future investment.
I touched upon the phase II transmission and distribution filing. Mark described the CEBs pipeline of projects. There are even more opportunities, such as the New York Storm Resiliency bill that is focused on undergrounding the distribution network and investing in and building out the infrastructure to support offshore wind goals, just to name a couple. We expect that these potential investment opportunities will continue to grow as New York and the country transition to a clean energy future. The responsibility for financing all of these opportunities falls to our Vice President and Treasurer, Yukari Saegusa. It is my pleasure to introduce Yukari.
Thanks, Robert. We are continually seeking the most efficient ways to finance our capital spending. In 2020, we issued our first green bonds. At the time of issuance, it was the largest green bond offering, $1.6 billion comprised of 10-year and 30-year bonds. Our inaugural offering was well received by investors, we issued another green bond this year with a size of $750 million 40-year bonds. The proceeds from both green bonds will be used for initiatives that you heard about today, including energy efficiency and electric vehicle Make-Ready Programs.
Our debt financing plan for 2021 anticipates issuing between $1.9 billion and $2.6 billion of long-term debt, including for maturing securities, primarily at the utilities. For 2022 and 2023, we plan to raise approximately $1.4 billion in aggregate of long-term debt at the utilities. For equity, our 2021 guidance was up to $800 million, and for the period of 2022-2023, approximately $700 million in aggregate of common equity. These targets are in addition to equity issued through our dividend reinvestment, employee stock purchase, and long-term incentive plans, which amount to about $100 million annually.
Also, our 2021 debt issuance plans includes non-recourse project debt secured by interest in some of our CEBs renewable projects. For 2021, we have completed our targeted equity issuance for the year. In addition to our green bond, we issued $750 million of 10-year debt at CECONY. The CEBs entered into a tax equity agreement in 2021 for a maximum funding obligation of $270 million, subject to certain conditions. The CEBs also issued an aggregate $350 million in project debt thus far in 2021.
Our New York regulator authorizes a 48% equity ratio at our utilities, so we will continue to maintain a conservative balance sheet. Our focus on the long-term sustainability of our business has enabled us to continue to raise the dividend. We have delivered 47 years of consecutive dividend increases, the longest of any utility in the S&P 500. We continue to support a payout ratio in the 60%-70% range. I will turn the presentation back to Tim for closing remarks.
Thanks so much, Yukari. You've heard the story of our journey as responsible corporate citizens. There are three points I want to emphasize as we close, and then we'll take some questions. First and foremost, safety and reliability are our top priorities. In 2020, our regulated utilities, CECONY and Orange and Rockland, had their best safety performances on record. As Mark had mentioned, it is core to the CEB operation as well. The second point to make is that our Clean Energy business has enough inventory of early, mid, and late-stage developments to double their total capacity of renewable energy.
Mark mentioned second largest in North America, and the pipeline would look to double the capacity that we currently have. Third is, and you've heard it in a number of different ways, we've committed the entire organization to climate change mitigation, and we'll also continue to incorporate the science of climate change as we make our energy delivery systems more resilient and reliable. Overseeing all of this is a really diverse, experienced, and very engaged Board of Directors.
Just as our Board has reviewed the climate change vulnerability study and its associated plan, they'll review the pathways we select for our clean energy future. These plans will be incorporated into long-range plans that we'll make public in early 2022. Today, we've outlined our pathway to be at the forefront of the nation's energy sector as we transition to a clean energy future. As we journey along this path, we'll continue to manage our business soundly and conservatively for people, for our planet, and for profit.
We'll accomplish this through an incredible workforce that reflects the commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and we'll focus on our core principles: safety, operational excellence, and enhancing the customer experience. Through our clean energy commitment, we'll continue to support the state goals of reducing emissions and transitioning to that clean energy future via renewables. As Robert mentioned, we'll invest $13 billion over the next three years to further our objectives.
In addition, we'll pursue opportunities to help our region transition to cleaner alternatives, and that'll include seeking to green-light the ability to build large-scale renewables in New York. Robert also mentioned we've identified $4 billion in transmission investment and another $1 billion in distribution investment to support the objectives of the New York State Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, or CLCPA. Our company is poised to be a leader in the nation's climate migration effort.
We have a strong future as a socially responsible leader. We take it to heart. It's based on a foundation of financial discipline and growth. We're excited by the prospects of our diverse and engaged workforce, a cleaner environment for future generations, and returns for our investors as we approach the beginning of our third century in providing safe, reliable, and clean energy for all of our customers. Thanks for hanging with us this morning and for all the interest you had in what we're doing. I'd ask my colleagues if they could turn their cameras on. We can take some questions. I think Jan's going to be good enough to help sort through that.
Great. Thanks, Tim. The first question, do you anticipate any changes in New York State's clean energy policies and agenda under the new governor?
Great, Jan. I do not, and we do not. The new governor we understand to be very supportive of the aggressive goals that New York State has set, and frankly, New York State has set incredibly aggressive goals. 70% renewable energy by 2030. We sit today at 25%, the rate of change, over 2,000 MW of renewables have to hit New York State between now and 2030. Every day that passes, the slope of that curve moves up.
That's one of the reasons we think we should be able to engage in some of that to help New York achieve its goal and to help our customers save money. We come out of the pandemic, we have new leadership at the state level, and that could shake up the direction. My sense is both of those factors only add to the breadth and depth of conviction. We need to take action now relative to the climate, and we are very optimistic that the path will continue to be fast and forward with regard to climate change mitigation.
Thanks. The next question, Tim, is can you please confirm the breakout of, for electric services, our fuel mix by gas, nuclear, solar, and wind?
Right, Jan. I don't know if we could pull the charts up, but we can refer to them. We had two charts. I can help differentiate. For the Con Edison Inc owned generation, we're about 70% renewable and 30% is really our steam generation units, which is, as Bob mentioned, a really incredibly efficient source of energy for New York's skyscrapers. Within the state, there's another chart. Jan, we'll make these slides available to the viewers?
Yes, Tim, they're on the website now.
Great. For the state, the state sits at about 50% fossil natural gas, and that state resource gets allocated to our customers through the New York Independent System Operator. Rob had a slide on that, and our region surpasses the 50% statewide allocation. Rob, I don't know if you had the slide up, if you recall what our customers receive as based on the New York ISO allocation.
Yeah. I'm looking at what's numbered slide 12. 50.7% natural gas, 37.1% nuclear, 1.2% wind. Oh, sorry, 8.7% hydro, 1.2% wind, 0.3% solar. I think that's the allocation to the downstate.
That's right. I think the resource is there and the information's there in the reference, and certainly, for the individual asking the question, if you review the slides and it hasn't unpacked your question, you can reach back to Jan and his team, who'll be happy to help.
Thanks, Tim. The next question actually comes with a comment as well, and it's to thank you as a CEO for your leadership and the analyst comments that too many companies pigeonhole this kind of work in their sustainability department, so it's refreshing to see the leadership being provided by you. That analyst also has a question. Do you have plans to join with other companies and NGOs to promote legislation and regulation at the federal, state, and city levels that would promote climate change mitigation?
Thanks, Jan. On the first topic, I work with an incredible team, and I can tell you that our employee base, when I talk about the future of this industry, and I talk about Mark Noyes' shop and all that he's accomplishing, it really engages our team, from the newest employees to those who have been here for 40+ years. Frankly, this idea about ESG integrated into our plans, it's really our path forward. Our ability to grow and to serve our customers and our planet in the way we want is really reliant on expanding EV programs, pushing out energy efficiency, electrifying buildings, introducing geothermal to our natural gas customers.
We really see that as both the right thing to do and our path forward for profitability and growth. It all lines up for us, and our employees and I am excited about the prospect. In terms of this idea about pushing for climate change mitigation as other NGOs have, we have, and we're outspoken in that space. There was federal standards on vehicle emissions, and we teamed with many others to keep the stricter standards because we understand that's the direction we need to go in.
In a number of places, EEI is a big trade group, and I can tell you, my peers and that organization want safe, reliable energy, affordable energy, and clean energy as fast as we can. There's a great understanding and appetite to move in the right direction. The groups we engage with understand the trajectory we're on and want to do it in a thoughtful, well-integrated way, but understand what the destination is.
Tim, here's another comment, and we had heard this comment when we met with another investor last week. The comment is one of urging us as a company to make sure that our trade associations are not undercutting policies with respect to climate change mitigation.
Yeah, we have a big seat at the table with the trade organizations we're on. We benefit greatly from the think tank that they present. Like I said, the organizations that we participate with understand the path we're on and are really looking to do it in a thoughtful, integrated way, at pace, so that our customers can benefit and no communities are left to the side and underserved, and that we get to the climate change mitigation that we want.
Right. The next question is in two parts. The first part of the question I will take, and that is, do you plan to update your carbon data for 2020? We have done that. It's in our sustainability report, and all you need do is contact any one of us identified in this presentation, me, Kiley, Jared Lee, or [Max Yu], and we can guide you to that.
We also have carbon emission disclosures in our EEI and AGA ESG templates as well as SASB. We have updated as well TCFD. That's on our website. The second part of that question, Tim, I'm going to direct this to Yukari. This is in regard to green bonds. Do you plan to publish an impact report for your outstanding green bonds and publish a green bond framework suggested by ICMA for future issuances?
Thanks, Jan. We do recognize that these impact reports are becoming industry standards, but it's not required for our green bond issuance. Nonetheless, we are evaluating publishing an impact report, and particularly for any potential future green bond issuance.
Tim, we've got two questions. Thank you, Yukari. We've got two questions regarding the infrastructure bill that was passed by both the Assembly and the Senate. What is the status of the storm hardening and system resiliency legislation? Where is it right now?
Jan, the New York State legislation?
Yes.
Yeah.
Oh, regarding storm hardening.
Yeah. As I know it is on the governor's desk, pending review. We think there's a lot of positives to the bill. Specifically, it calls for climate change study and plan, and we've done that, and many utilities are beginning to model the process that we went through and that we learned so much from. Cathy pointed out the number of sunny days or 95-degree days in Central Park go from 4- 11 by the 2030s. That really changes things. Sea level rise, if you look back 30 years, it's 0.3 ft, and moving forward 30 years, 1.3 ft. Good to have that knowledge so we can plan our systems accordingly.
A positive of that bill is that utilities will plan for the future and can submit resiliency and hardening plans, such as undergrounding and flood protection pursuant to it, and that would be covered in a surcharge. We think that certain other aspects don't work as well. Time limits for restoration, we certainly want to do our best to restore customers as timely as possible when the weather wreaks havoc on our system. Certain storms will take time to restore. It's sitting on the governor's desk. That's where it is. We continue to share our thoughts with regard to the pluses and minuses from our perspective of that bill, and we stand by, waiting for any resolution at this point.
Tim, the second part of that question is, does that bill accelerate some of the projects that we were talking about, some of the clean energy efforts?
Yeah. I would say, Jan, it could accelerate some of the clean energy, but I think more so it would accelerate some of the adaptation that Cathy talked about. This year, we'll do three pilots to underground our overhead system. Effectively, when these storms blow through, our overhead infrastructure, that is the poles and wires that you see on the street, that infrastructure does quite well in the wind and the rain.
The trees don't do so well, and when the trees come down on the infrastructure, that's when it topples our equipment and we're into the repair. We'll do three pilots across the service territory to underground that and protect it from the trees that come down. That bill might accelerate some of those activities. It could be danger tree removal. If unhealthy trees are along the right of way of our distribution network, we'd remove them before they fall and harm the infrastructure. Programs like that would be included in the storm bill that was asked about.
Thank you. Next question. Historically, a lot of New York's clean energy programs have been funded by third parties. Do you expect Con Ed to play a more active role in investments in the future? What are your advantages over some of the smaller independent players?
Jan, I'll ask to make sure I'm trying to be responsive. I heard the question. In terms of the clean energy investments, large-scale renewable or all investments that help mitigate climate change?
I think it's both. I think it's large scale renewables, battery storage, and even EVs.
Yeah. I would say more and more, we are engaging in broader and wider programs to help mitigate climate change. Bob Sanchez shared our Make-Ready Program for EVs. In New York City, in our region, only 1% of the vehicles are electric, so we are behind certainly Europe and many cities in the United States. The biggest holdback there is range anxiety. If you don't know where you're going to charge your vehicle, you're reluctant to buy an EV. We'll go ahead and install over 20,000 electric vehicle chargers and help businesses and building owners subsidize some of those costs.
We'll earn on the investment and invest about $300 million. We're going to install the largest battery storage site in New York, in Astoria, Queens at the site of a former fossil fuel plant, and that'll help with the intermittency of renewables. Our energy efficiency programs continue to grow. We'll invest $1.5 billion by 2025. That's the best tool we have. In terms of our advantage, we have been at this for 200 years. We know our customers, we know our systems, we know how to innovate and adjust and deploy these dollars in a way that gets the greatest impact for customers and the climate.
In terms of large scale renewables, Mark shared his story. He has a top team. They understand how to permit, develop, build, and operate these systems, and that's why, in part, he's the second largest in North America. When we do the math, we believe that utility ownership, rate-based ownership of these renewables, will go far in, number one, helping New York State achieve its incredibly aggressive goals of 70% renewable by 2030.
Also, we think it benefits our customers from a cost perspective, and we have been at this, promoting this idea for a number of years. The reason we don't let go is largely because it benefits our customers so much. The biggest advantage customers will get from our ownership is the customer will pay for the assets effectively, but they'll get every last bit of benefit out of them. For example, if a private developer installs a solar installation, call it 100 MW, they'll typically sign a 20-year PPA, and after 20 years, they will recontract for that power because the solar panels will still produce many megawatt hours.
If we rate bases, that tail life of the asset will go to the benefit of customers. They won't pay for the generation twice. We've seen cases where subsidized renewable in New York State, after a period of time, sells to adjacent states. That would not happen under utility ownership. We think we certainly know how to do it, and I point to Mark's [share-free add] and we think it's to the benefit of our customers. Those two issues, coupled with the extreme pace and aggressive goals, we think, make it ideal for us to enter this market.
Tim, that leads into the next question. Is there a real opportunity to change the State's posture with respect to utility ownership of renewables? What needs to happen for that to become a reality?
Yeah. We keep making the case, and I'm an optimist and a realist, so I can't tell you when. I can tell you that-In the energy efficiency area and the storage area, and the EV area most recently, it took a bit of time for us to make our case that we were the right players to advance these technologies for this great city and region. I'm hoping that we follow a similar path with large-scale renewables in the state. There is some legislation that has been on and being reviewed for a couple of years, so there's sort of a legislative track.
Probably five or six years ago, and Robert might help clean me up, as part of one of the stages of REV, Reforming the Energy Vision, the idea of utility ownership came up. While the proceeding didn't close the door on ownership, it didn't allow it either. I would say, on the regulatory front, not a lot happening now with regard to our breaking through in this area. On the legislative front, we're getting some supporters, but it's still being reviewed.
I think the last thing I'll add before I bounce to Robert to correct or clean up what I've said, is some environmental groups are at least interested, and they're basically saying, given the pace of renewables that are needed in New York State to achieve the goals, maybe this should be an all-hands-on-deck approach. We believe it will be, and needs to be. When we get support from other parties, it certainly helps our case. Robert, would you clean up anything from what I said?
I think what you said was right, Tim. It was the REV Track 3 order in 2016, and the commission did leave the door open to reconsidering their decision to do all renewables in the state through third-party solicitations. We had proposed a mix of developer-owned and projects that would be owned by the utility on the basis that there is a developer community for renewables that exists in the United States that doesn't want to carry assets on their balance sheets, and that that would be a logical additional market to access through utility ownership.
Thanks, Robert.
Thank you. Tim, this looks like our last question. It relates to CEB. CEB has a huge backlog. Are there financial limitations on the size of that business, either in terms of CapEx dollars or percentage of earnings mix?
I would say, and I'll push to both Robert and Mark as well, I'd say there's no hard caps. The level we're at now, we continue to evaluate. Right now, we're at a place where Mark indicated that scale does matter in this space in terms of suppliers and the ability to get good projects. This keeps us at a scale that provides the competitive edge we currently have and want to retain. At this level, we'll largely be able to self-fund the business from the existing portfolio of projects. That'll be important as we look to strengthen our EPS performance moving forward. Robert or Mark, would you add?
Only to say that, as I think the investor base knows, the shape of the earnings profile for these businesses essentially requires us as a PE multiple valued business currently, until the analysts start to develop individual valuations for our business units to make that trade-off between growth and EPS impact.
Good add, Robert. Thanks.
The one thing I would add, Tim, is that from a non-financial standpoint, the platform is capable and not limited in any way. It can deliver and has delivered before $1 billion-$1.3 billion of asset construction, et c. We can continue to grow the business from an operations maintenance and asset management standpoint. Really, no major limitations there.
Thanks, Mark.
Tim, that's all the questions we have.
Thanks, all. I know everybody on the phone or on the webinar is certainly busy. We really appreciate you taking the time out. Jan, you mentioned that the materials will be or are posted.
They are posted.
Right. They're posted. Certainly, if you have questions, Jan and his team are there to answer and respond. We are really excited about the prospects for growth. We think the transition to this clean energy future lines up with our values. It excites our employees and provides a path for growth. It's really our path forward. Be well, be safe, and take care, all.