Just One More - How New England Would Benefit From a Gas Pipeline Expansion

The U.S. power sector’s shift to natural gas over the past few years has been a boon to gas producers across the Lower 48, especially in the Northeast. Scores of new gas-fired power plants have been built there during the Shale Era, and a number of coal-fired, oil-fired, and nuclear plants have been taken offline. New England is a case in point; gas-fired power now accounts for about half of the installed generating capacity in the six-state region (Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine) — three times what it was 20 years ago. But New Englanders have a love-hate relationship with natural gas, and with renewables and energy storage on the rise, gas’s role in the land of the Red Sox, hard-to-understand accents, and lobsta’ rolls may well have peaked. Today, we discuss recent developments on the natural gas and power generation fronts in the northeastern corner of the U.S.

New England is determined to shift toward a greener electric grid, but the region’s plan to slash its current reliance on natural gas (and backup fuel oil — and sometimes coal) by ramping up offshore wind and solar (and backup batteries) has hit a seemingly immovable object. President Trump, a staunch opponent of offshore wind, on Day 1 of his second administration ordered a halt to new leases and permits and directed his Interior Secretary to review existing permits. As we’ll discuss in today’s RBN blog, those moves have left New England power planners scratching their heads, and may even resurrect the possibility of expanding natural gas pipeline capacity into the region. 

New England’s aggressive effort to decarbonize is a tangled web. Over the past several years, the six-state region has replaced oil- and coal-fired power plants with natural gas-fired ones but most proposals to build new gas pipeline capacity have been rejected. It’s also made ambitious plans to add renewables — especially solar and offshore wind — to its power generation mix but many of the largest, most impactful projects have been delayed or canceled. And now there’s a big push to electrify space heating and transportation, which will significantly increase power demand, especially during the winter months, when New England’s electric grid is already skating on thin ice. In today’s RBN blog, we examine the region’s looming power supply challenges and how its energy transition plans may affect natural gas, LNG, heating oil and propane markets.