NEW YORK, Aug. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. (Con Edison) reached a record level of electricity delivery for a one-week period last week as 1,567,147 megawatt hours of electricity were used by its 3.1 million customers from Monday, August 6 through Sunday, August 12. This period also included the highest-ever hourly peak demand, 12,207 megawatts, reached at 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 9. The Con Edison system delivers energy to an estimated 8.9 million New York City and Westchester County residents.

"In the face of six straight days of temperatures over 90 degrees, which created historic demands on our resources and intense working conditions for our employees, our system performed extremely well and our employees more than met the challenge. When we asked our customers to conserve power to help us through the most difficult periods they responded and we thank them for their help," said Kevin Burke, president of Con Edison.

Con Edison is spending $483 million this year on its electrical transmission and distribution system as part of a five-year comprehensive $2.4 billion program to enhance reliability and improve infrastructure. The distribution system includes more than 89,000 miles of underground cables, 34,000 miles of overhead lines, 250,000 manholes and service boxes, 25,000 underground transformers and 201,000 utility poles.

The company also established two new gas system records and recorded its highest summer one-day delivery for 2001. On Thursday, August 9, a new summer total gas system daily delivery record of 1,077,858 dekatherms was achieved. Also on that date, the company exceeded its previous record for the amount of gas used for electric and steam generation by 7.5 percent, reaching 904,638 dekatherms. A dekatherm is a measurement of gas equivalent to 10 therms; the typical New York City customer cooking with gas will use approximately 8 therms a month. The Con Edison gas system, which has nearly 2,000 miles of mains and more than 100,000 service pipes, supplies gas to more than 1 million customers in Manhattan, the Bronx, northern Queens, and most of Westchester County and serves approximately 4.6 million New Yorkers.

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 $17 billion in assets. The utility provides electric, gas and steam service to more than three 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 http://www.coned.com.

SOURCE Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc.

CONTACT: Michael Clendenin of Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc., +1-212-460-4111/