Gas Fired Power Generation

Producers in the Marcellus and Utica shale plays could be moving a lot more natural gas into New England, if only there was enough pipeline capacity to get it there. An increasingly gas-hungry neighbor to the nation’s most prolific production area, New England has added precious little capacity to transport gas, and the fates of game-changing pipeline projects that have been proposed hang in the balance. The region’s unique gas-delivery challenges, their market impacts and possible solutions are the subject of RBN Energy’s newly released Drill Down report, “Please Come To Boston—New England’s Ongoing Gas-Supply Dilemma”. Today, we provide a preview, and highlight some of the report’s findings.

<p>Cold weather, abundant supplies of natural gas and lower-than-normal winter gas prices spurred record power burns in January and February, and the power burn for the rest of 2015 is likely to be record-breaking too.</p>

Power generation has surged as a market for natural gas in recent years, and gas-fired generation has become the largest single source of generation capacity.  So coordinating the two industries, or “Gas-Electric Harmonization” has been around as an issue for quite some time.  But while pipelines

Florida Power and Light owner NextEra Energy is currently holding an open season on a new pipeline system to help supply their natural gas fired generating assets in Florida. If built, this system will be the third gas pipeline to supply Florida, which has no onshore production. Unlike the two existing pipelines that receive most of their supplies from conventional Gulf Coast production, the third pipeline would likely be fed by shale production from the Midcontinent and Texas. Those supplies are looking for a home in the Gulf nowadays as surging Marcellus production overtakes their traditional Northeast market. Today we review the project plans.