NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - Nov 16, 2011) - Con Edison has been named winner of the 2011 National Award for Outstanding Reliability Performance by PA Consulting Group for the company's electricity delivery in 2010. Con Edison also received the organization's ReliabilityOne™ Award for the Northeast Region, as well as an award for Outstanding System-Wide Reliability.

The ReliabilityOne™ National Award is given to the ReliabilityOne™ regional award recipient that has demonstrated sustained leadership, innovation and achievement in the area of electric reliability. The selection criteria for the ReliabilityOne™ National Award are both quantitative and qualitative including:

• superior regional performance
• sustained performance over time
• improved performance over time
• leadership in outage data collection and reporting systems, processes, procedures and controls
• organizational and cultural focus on reliability
• communication, planning, preparation, and response to major outage events
• contributions to regional system security and reliability

The ReliabilityOne™ Awards are given annually to utilities delivering the most reliable electric service to their customers. Con Edison customers in New York City and Westchester County have fewer interruptions than other utilities, with Con Edison's reliability 85 percent better than the industry average, according to PA Consulting.

"We know this is a great honor," said John Miksad, Con Edison senior vice president, Electric Operations, "and we know providing reliable service is what's critically important to our customers. The ReliabilityOne™ recognition is a tribute to our hardworking people who do their best to keep the lights on, and who have to deal with any challenge that arises. This was true particularly in a year when we had extreme weather, including heavy snows, widespread flooding, record heat, and tornadoes."

Con Edison crews have continued to respond to extreme weather this year, including Hurricane Irene and the recent October snowstorm.

All utilities operating electric delivery networks in North America are eligible for consideration for the ReliabilityOne™ Award. There are a total of five regional awards including Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Plains, and West. The selection of provisional recipients is based primarily on system reliability statistics that measure the frequency and duration of customer outages. After provisional recipients are selected, each company undergoes an on-site certification process, which provides an independent review and confirmation of the policies, processes and systems used to collect, analyze and report a company's reliability results.

"ReliabilityOne™ Award winners represent the very best our industry has to offer in terms of service quality," said Jeff Lewis, PA Consulting Group's ReliabilityOne™ program director. "Con Edison has once again demonstrated its unwavering commitment to customers by achieving the highest levels of reliability."

About Con Edison

Con Edison is a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc. (NYSE: [ ED ]), one of the nation's largest investor-owned energy companies, with approximately $13 billion in annual revenues and $37 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 us on the Web at [ www.conEd.com ], at our green site, [ www.coned.com/thepowerofgreen ], or find us on Facebook at Power of Green.

About PA Consulting Group
PA Consulting Group is a leading management and IT consulting and technology firm. Independent and employee-owned, PA Consulting operates globally in more than 30 countries and transforms the performance of major organizations in both the private and public sectors. From initial idea generation and strategy development through to detailed implementation, PA Consulting delivers significant and tangible results. PA Consulting has outstanding technology development capability; a unique breadth of skills from strategy to performance improvement, from HR to IT; and strong expertise in communications, media and entertainment, defense, energy, financial services, government and public services, healthcare, international development, manufacturing, and water. For more information about PA Consulting Group, please visit [ www.paconsulting.com ].