Here's 1 Big Opportunity for New York City's Incoming Mayor

I have increasingly been focusing on utilities in recent weeks and wanted to stay on the subject by turning attention on Con Edison . Why now? There is a leadership change taking effect with John McAvoy taking over for CEO Kevin Burke on Jan 1st.

McAvoy has been with Con Edison for over three decades, and his working knowledge of operations will be a big plus, especially since he has intimate knowledge of what the company needs to do to succeed. That being said, the company's bullish stance on microgrids is very attractive. However, there are still a lot of regulations surrounding distributed power that are yet to be edged in stone. Therefore, Con Edison is really entering into new territory at a time when it is still managing bandaid fixes to myriad infrastructure damage post Sandy.

Additionally, New York is getting a new mayor in Bill de Blasio who will look to continue Michael Bloomberg's vision on energy resiliency. This should bode well for Con Edison. In fact, one of de Blasio's main campaign topics was rebuilding and preparing for the post-Sandy future through backup solar power systems to be grid-independent.

This has me thinking success in New York to implement and regulate distributed power could be seen as a template by other utilities such as Duke in the Southeast and Exelon in the Midwest and by power providers around the world as well.

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The article Here's 1 Big Opportunity for New York City's Incoming Mayor originally appeared on Fool.com.

John Licata has no position in any stocks mentioned. You can follow John on Twitter at bluephoenixinc. The Motley Fool recommends Exelon. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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