How NY HEAT Can Save New Yorkers from Spending Billions on Increasingly Obsolete Infrastructure

New Yorkers are facing soaring gas bills because outdated laws governing utility service subsidize and promote fossil gas use (or “natural gas”), compelling utilities to spend billions on unnecessary, polluting infrastructure. In just two years, gas utilities across the state spent nearly $400 million expanding gas service and more than $2 billion replacing aging pipes—costs that New Yorkers will be repaying for decades. The pace and scale of these wasteful investments jeopardize the orderly, affordable transition needed to meet New York’s climate act targets. 

A smarter path forward 

The New York Home Energy Affordable Transition (NY HEAT) Act offers a smarter, more affordable path by allowing utilities to redirect funding from costly gas infrastructure—like digging up streets to replace old pipes, which can cost millions per mile and cause major disruption—toward lower-cost, community-scale electrification projects that enhance the buildings in which New Yorkers work and live. 

These strategic investments enable the retirement of aging infrastructure and avoid future costs to energy customers. NY HEAT would improve affordability by supporting building electrification at no out-of-pocket cost to participating households while lowering overall system costs and delivering cost savings for all remaining gas customers.  

Despite clear affordability, public health, and climate benefits, many cost-effective electrification projects are stalled because outdated laws create an entitlement to utility gas service. Under current law, gas utilities cannot retire part of the gas system, even when it’s clearly in the public interest to do so, unless every customer served by that part of the system agrees to electrify. This all-or-nothing rule privileging the preference of one customer over the collective interest forces costly gas system rebuilds—even when the pipes may soon be obsolete and more cost-effective, climate-aligned alternatives are available. 

Con Edison’s non-pipeline alternatives programs demonstrate the case for reform 

Con Edison’s recent rate filing underscores the need for regulatory reform and how the existing regulatory framework doesn’t provide any flexibility. The company proposes $2.8 billion in gas system investments over three years, including $1.4 billion to replace 240 miles of pipe, $360 million for service line upgrades, and $193 million to connect new customers. These investments in a shrinking, polluting system—most of which will be recovered from customers over the next 85 years or more—increase financial pressure on customers and undermine the state’s affordability and decarbonization goals.  

This pattern is difficult to avoid under current law, which requires utilities to maintain and expand gas service wherever requested, even if it leads to costly and unnecessary investments. The utilities’ obligation to serve gas, combined with the inability to decommission gas infrastructure unless all customers agree to electrify, trap utilities in a cycle of forced reinvestment that prioritizes compliance over prudence and the greater public interest.  

This legal rigidity has made it extraordinarily difficult for utilities to act on opportunities that would lower costs and reduce emissions. Yet Con Edison’s early Non-Pipes Alternative (NPA) experience demonstrates the promise of NY HEAT and helps clarify how it would be implemented. While the NPA programs are just getting started, an early standout example is the Electric Advantage program, which avoids gas pipe replacements by offering full building electrification at no out-of-pocket cost to participating customers. It targets buildings served by leak-prone pipes, providing upgrades like air-source heat pumps, efficient water heaters, and weatherization. If all customers on a main electrify, the utility can fully retire the pipe—avoiding emissions and gas infrastructure spending, which would cost more. 

The program identified 290 gas pipes with electrification opportunities and contacted customers at 235 buildings within 105 of the opportunities that were determined to be cost-effective. Yet only 14 buildings across nine different gas pipes have completed conversions to date. The key obstacle: Every customer on a targeted gas pipe must agree to fully electrify. A single holdout forces full gas pipe replacement, entrenching fossil infrastructure and driving up system costs even where most customers want to electrify. This barrier stalled progress in roughly half of the opportunities pursued. In another 20 percent, customers were nonresponsive or noncommittal. 

Still, the remaining 30 percent of projects are actively moving forward through discussions or installations. The completed conversions prove the model works—and underscore the urgent need for NY HEAT to eliminate the all-or-nothing rule and unlock the benefits of strategic electrification at scale.  

How NY HEAT would unlock broader benefits 

Where implemented, NPAs deliver substantial, quantifiable benefits. Customers receive turnkey electrification upgrades—including new heating, weatherization, and electric panel improvements—with no out-of-pocket costs. Post-installation customer satisfaction surveys average 4.6 out of 5, citing greater comfort and high-quality service.  

Importantly, Con Edison has fully decommissioned five gas mains where every connected building electrified, eliminating 1,338 dekatherms of annual gas use and 29.25 dekatherms during peak demand. According to the state’s GHG Estimation Tool, this reduced gas use collectively avoids an estimated 126 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year, which is comparable to burning more than 14,000 gallons of gasoline or almost 6,000 tanks of propane. 

System-wide, NPAs avoid unnecessary capital spending —such as costly, noisy, and disruptive street excavation for gas pipe replacement—reduce stranded asset risks, and enable a managed downsizing of the gas system, helping to promote long-term affordability as customer demand declines. 

Con Edison’s NPA programs also prioritize disadvantaged communities, ensuring cleaner, safer, and more affordable energy access. They drive economic development by creating jobs in construction, HVAC, weatherization, and electrical trades. The public health and climate benefits are notable: fewer methane leaks, lower emissions, and healthier indoor air—supporting the climate act’s emissions reduction and environmental justice goals.  

These early outcomes show NY HEAT’s promise. By removing the all-or-nothing constraint that hamstrings utilities, it would unlock more electrification opportunities, deliver cost savings to more households, and enable a responsible transition away from New York’s aging, expensive, polluting gas system. Lawmakers should seize the opportunity to pass NY HEAT before the end of the legislative session to ensure communities across the state can benefit from cleaner, more affordable energy solutions—and avoid locking in decades of unnecessary fossil fuel infrastructure costs.