I · How the line actually works
New York runs interconnection under a single statewide rulebook, the Standardized Interconnection Requirements, or SIR (the procedures and timelines the state's Public Service Commission requires every utility to follow). A project files an application, Con Edison runs a preliminary review to see whether the local circuit has obvious room, and larger projects then go into a detailed study called a CESIR (Coordinated Electric System Interconnection Review, the engineering analysis of exactly what the project would do to voltage, equipment, and safety on that feeder).
Most of the wait lives in that study. If the feeder (the distribution line that carries power from a substation out to a neighborhood) can take the project as it stands, approval is comparatively quick. If it cannot, the project may have to pay for upgrades, a new transformer or protective gear, and both the cost and the wait climb. Those numbers are project-specific and move with each study, so treat any single figure you hear as a rough placeholder until the CESIR comes back.
II · The network under the street
A quirk of New York matters more here than almost anywhere else: much of the densest part of the city, most of Manhattan and the cores of the other boroughs, is served by a secondary network grid (a web of low-voltage lines tied together so that if one cable fails, the lights stay on). That design is excellent for reliability and genuinely hard for solar, because pushing power backward onto a network was never what it was built to do, and doing it safely takes extra protection equipment.
Out in the more spread-out parts of Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx, the wires are often radial (a simpler line running one direction from the substation), and solar export is more straightforward there. That is a large part of why two identical rooftops, one in Midtown and one on a low-rise block further out, can face very different waits. The panels are the same; the grid beneath them is not.
III · Checking your own feeder
Con Edison publishes a hosting capacity map (a public online map that shades each feeder by roughly how much new generation it can still accept). It is the closest thing to a weather report for the queue: green stretches suggest room, saturated areas suggest a longer road. Find the address, read the shading, and you have a rough sense of whether nearby panels are dark because of the wires or because of paperwork somewhere else.
Treat the map as a planning snapshot, not a promise. It updates periodically rather than in real time, it reflects projects already in line that you cannot see, and only the CESIR gives a binding answer for a specific project. Still, for a resident trying to understand why a neighbor's array sits idle, or whether their own roof is worth pursuing, it is the honest first stop.
IV · Worth watching this month
1. Con Edison's hosting capacity map refreshes on a periodic schedule, so a feeder that reads full today may show new room after the next update; routine, but worth a recheck before you commit.
2. The Public Service Commission's distributed generation and interconnection proceedings on the state docket can change SIR timelines and cost rules; most filings are routine, but the ones that touch study deadlines are the ones that actually move waits.
3. NYSERDA's NY-Sun dashboard reports installed and pending solar statewide, a rough gauge of how crowded the pipeline is this season.
4. Summer peak demand, usually in the hottest weeks of July and August, is when the network's limits show most clearly and when export rules get the closest attention.
5. Con Edison periodically posts distributed generation and interconnection updates; a scheduled map or process change there is routine, while a pause in processing is the kind of thing worth flagging.