New York Dispensary Energy Costs: Small-Commercial Classes, the Reset Order, and ESCO Choice

How many stores, and where

New York had 527 licensed adult-use retail dispensaries and 352 Conditional Adult-Use Retail Dispensary (CAURD) licenses as of the May 29, 2026 Cannabis Control Board meeting, with more than 664 stores open for business [ny-ocm-ccb-release-2026-06]. A large share of them are in Con Edison's five-borough and Westchester territory, which is also where the state's commercial electricity is most expensive [coned-rates]. The rest are spread across National Grid upstate, NYSEG, RG&E, Central Hudson, and Orange & Rockland, all of which are open to ESCOs, plus Long Island, which is not [ny-dps-esco-info].

The general dispensary energy page covers the equipment in any store. What follows is the New York layer.

What draws power in a New York store

A dispensary is a retail load with a few extras:

• Lighting. Display and general lighting runs every open hour, and in New York City that often means 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days. LED is standard in new builds; older leased space may still have fluorescent troffers worth replacing.
• HVAC. Statewide normals are 6,001 heating degree days and 618 cooling degree days [noaa-cag-new-york], so an upstate store spends more on heating than cooling. A Manhattan or Brooklyn storefront has more summer humidity to handle, with dew points in the 60s F routine from June through September [noaa-cag-new-york], and heating is often gas or building-supplied.
• Refrigeration. Edibles and beverages in reach-in coolers, sometimes a small walk-in. These run 24 hours and are the main reason a store's overnight load never drops to zero.
• Security. Cameras, recorders, access control, alarm panels, and vault lighting run continuously. Small individually, always on collectively.
• Point of sale and back office. Registers, tablets, printers, and networking. Minor.

The demand peak in a store is usually a summer afternoon when HVAC, lighting, and refrigeration compressors overlap. For most stores that peak is small enough to stay under the demand-class threshold, which is the point of the next section.

Which small-commercial class a store lands in

Utility	Class for a typical store	Boundary
Con Edison	SC 2 General Small	Requirements not exceeding 10 kW; at 10 kW and above the account moves to SC 9 General Large with per-kW demand charges [coned-rates]
National Grid upstate	SC-2 Non-Demand or SC-2 Demand	Non-demand for accounts under 100 kW that have not exceeded 2,000 kWh a month for four consecutive months; above that, SC-2 Demand with a $65.00 customer charge and $18.93 per kW delivery demand charge on the current page [ngrid-upstate-service-rates]
Central Hudson	SC 2 without measured demand, or SC 2 secondary measured demand	SC 2 is split into non-demand, secondary measured-demand, measured demand over 50 kW, and primary measured-demand sub-rates [cenhud-rate-codes]
NYSEG and RG&E	SC-2 small general, including a demand-billed variant	Keyed to billing demand; confirm thresholds in the current rate summary

Con Edison's 10 kW SC 2 ceiling is low [coned-rates]. A 2,500 square foot store with a few tons of cooling, LED lighting, and reach-in coolers can sit right at that line, and a store with a walk-in or electric heat will pass it. Once on SC 9, the bill gains a per-kW delivery demand charge and, for default-supply customers, a per-kW Demand Supply component [coned-rates]. For a New York City store that is the single most important number to know before signing a lease, because it decides whether demand management matters at all.

National Grid's SC-2 rule works on kWh, not kW: cross 2,000 kWh a month for four consecutive months and the account moves to SC-2 Demand [ngrid-upstate-service-rates]. Almost every operating dispensary uses more than 2,000 kWh a month, so an upstate store should expect SC-2 Demand and plan for the per-kW charge from day one.

Why a small load still benefits from supply choice here

Two reasons specific to New York.

First, the utility benchmark moves every month. Con Edison's Market Supply Charge and the other utilities' monthly supply prices are built from NYISO day-ahead market results [coned-rates], so a store on default supply gets a different price each billing period. A fixed ESCO price removes that variation, which matters for a retailer budgeting on thin margins.

Second, the price level. At the June 2026 New York commercial average of 23.56 cents per kWh against 14.19 nationally [eia-epm-5-6-a], the supply portion of a store's bill is large enough in dollars that a few tenths of a cent per kWh is real money over a term. That is not the case in every state.

The complication is the 2019 Reset Order. In Case 15-M-0127 the PSC restricted what ESCOs may sell to mass-market customers, defined as residential and small non-residential accounts, to three product types: a savings-guarantee product (the order's term), a product with at least 50 percent renewable content, or a fixed price no more than 5 percent above the trailing utility supply price [ny-psc-reset-order-2019]. A dispensary on a non-demand class is likely inside that definition. That does not stop it from switching; it means the menu is shorter, and the fixed-price option is capped relative to what the utility has been charging. A store that crosses onto a demand class is likely outside the definition and can be quoted any structure [ny-psc-reset-order-2019]. Because the exact "small non-residential" cutoff was not confirmed from the order text, get the ESCO's classification in writing before you compare offers.

A worked example: 3,000 square foot store

Assumptions, not facts:

• 3,000 square feet of sales floor and back of house, open 12 hours a day.
• LED lighting at 1.0 W per square foot: 3 kW for 12 hours, plus 0.5 kW security and emergency lighting overnight.
• HVAC averaging 4 kW during open hours and 1.5 kW overnight across the year.
• Three reach-in coolers and one small walk-in totaling 2 kW average, 24 hours.
• Security, POS, and networking at 1 kW, 24 hours.

Daily kWh: lighting 3 x 12 + 0.5 x 12 = 42; HVAC 4 x 12 + 1.5 x 12 = 66; refrigeration 48; security and POS 24. About 180 kWh a day, or roughly 5,400 kWh a month. A busier store with more display lighting and a larger cooler could reach 9,000.

At 23.56 cents per kWh all-in [eia-epm-5-6-a], 5,400 kWh is about $1,270 a month; 9,000 kWh is about $2,120. Peak demand in this example is around 10 to 11 kW on a summer afternoon, which is exactly the Con Edison SC 2 boundary [coned-rates]. A store like this in Manhattan should know its measured demand before assuming it stays on the small class.

Upstate the same store on National Grid would be on SC-2 Demand, since 5,400 kWh a month clears the 2,000 kWh trigger [ngrid-upstate-service-rates]. With an 11 kW peak the delivery demand charge is about $208 a month at $18.93 per kW [ngrid-upstate-service-rates], on top of energy. The way to hold that number down is to keep the walk-in compressor and the HVAC from starting together on a hot afternoon; a simple controller does it.

County-level notes

• New York City (Con Edison, Zone J). Highest delivery and capacity costs in the state [coned-rates]. The SC 2 versus SC 9 line at 10 kW is the first thing to check on any lease.
• Westchester (Con Edison, Zone I). Same tariff as the city with slightly different capacity pricing; treat as downstate.
• Hudson Valley (Central Hudson and Orange & Rockland, Zone G). Inside the G-J capacity locality, so supply costs sit between city and upstate levels. Central Hudson's SC 2 sub-rates let a small store stay on non-demand billing longer than Con Edison's 10 kW ceiling allows [cenhud-rate-codes].
• Upstate (National Grid, NYSEG, RG&E, Zones A through F). Lowest energy and capacity prices in the state. Demand charges still apply, but the supply line is smaller.
• Long Island (PSEG Long Island). No ESCO choice [ny-dps-esco-info]. Efficiency and demand management are the only levers.

SC 2 small general service in Zone J

Con Edison Service Classification 2 covers general-use accounts whose requirements do not exceed 10 kW [coned-rates]. Most Manhattan and Westchester dispensaries stay on SC 2 without SC 9 demand metering [coned-rates]. Market Supply Charge resets monthly on utility default supply [coned-rates].

527 retail licenses and zone diversity

OCM reported 527 retail dispensaries and 352 CAURD locations statewide as of June 2026 [ny-ocm-ccb-release-2026-06]. Multi-borough operators face separate Con Edison accounts with identical tariff books but different load shapes [coned-rates]. ESCO enrollment is per account [ny-dps-esco-info].

Efficiency help for stores

Con Edison's Commercial and Industrial program rebates lighting and lighting controls, HVAC, and refrigeration upgrades, capped at 50 percent of project cost and requiring pre-approval before installation [coned-ci-program]. A store replacing fluorescent display lighting or an aging rooftop unit should apply before buying. If you cannot read your bill well enough to tell which class you are on, start with understanding your commercial utility bill and utility rate classes explained.

Dispensaries in neighboring states face similar equipment and different rules: New Jersey dispensaries buy in PJM under the BPU, and Massachusetts dispensaries compare against a basic service rate that resets on a fixed schedule rather than monthly.