Sustainable Westchester has decided to pull the plug on its renewable energy program, and contrary to its executive director’s claims, the decision is not due to new regulations but to the program’s failure to meet existing outreach and education requirements.
In a letter sent to 26 participating municipalities, including the city of Rye, Sustainable Westchester Executive Director Noam Bramson attributed the decision to terminate the Westchester Power renewable energy program to new outreach and education requirements from the state Public Service Commission (PSC), which he said made it impossible to renew the contract on time.
The program, which is regulated by the PSC and managed by Sustainable Westchester, is slated to close by the end of November.
Participating Westchester Power customers will automatically be returned to Con Edison or NYSEG as soon as it is practical as their default suppliers, PSC spokesperson James Denn said. The roughly 150,000 households and businesses across Westchester will pay standard rates for those energy providers, but they still have the option to use an energy service company that offers clean energy services.
“Although our outreach and education activities in recent months have been, by far, the most extensive and robust in the program’s history, we are unable to obtain State authorization to launch the new contract on schedule,” Bramson wrote in his Nov. 6 letter.
But Denn told The Record that explanation was inaccurate.
“There were no new rules adopted in 2025 that impacted Community Choice Aggregation programs,” Denn said in a statement.
Denn said Sustainable Westchester’s renewal filings failed to meet long-standing outreach and education requirements, including clear rate comparisons for consumers, and that the November 2024 PSC order Bramson cited only clarified existing rules without adding new mandates.
Westchester Power is temporarily suspended, not permanently ended, and could resume if the organization fixes these deficiencies, according to Denn.
Meanwhile, Con Edison reached a settlement agreement on a three-year rate increase for Westchester and New York City of 2.8 percent for electric and 2 percent for gas bills last week — down from the double-digit rate hikes the service provider had been seeking.
The increases, which would go into effect on Jan. 1, 2026, await the approval of the PSC.
Councilman James Ward, the former chair of the city Sustainability Committee, said he was “tremendously disappointed” by Westchester Power’s sudden halt in operations.
“It was a program that offered people choice,” Ward, a Democrat, said. “There’s nothing out there that would give you the flexibility of opting in and out as Westchester Power.”
Additionally, he advised against subscribing to an energy service company (ESCO), saying those alternative clean energy providers often cost residents more and can be difficult to cancel once enrolled.
Denn said outreach and education are the most crucial step in community energy aggregation programs like Westchester Power, which allow municipalities to pool residents’ electricity purchases to negotiate better rates or cleaner energy options — especially as energy prices rise.
“Failure to observe even the minimum outreach requirements imposed by the Commission results in an inadequately informed customer base,” he said.
In April, the Rye City Council voted 5-2 along party lines to renew its participation in Westchester Power. The program, launched in 2016 and managed by Sustainable Westchester, aimed to lower emissions by aggregating electricity purchases for residents and small businesses.
At that meeting, Bramson, the former Democratic mayor of New Rochelle, claimed the program had removed 328,000 metric tons of carbon in 2024, equivalent to taking 76,000 cars off the road.
Republican Councilman Bill Henderson, one of two Republicans who voted against the measure, cited the program’s higher costs. Roughly half the community has opted out since renewing participation in the program, according to Henderson.
Henderson could not be reached for comment.
