WaEx: New England is approaching what grid officials and utility executives expect to be a very pricey winter for energy consumers and one that risks a shortage of energy during extended periods of extreme cold.
It’s not an unfamiliar forecast for the region, where cold temperatures and natural gas pipeline constraints have a record of driving supply tightness, and thereby driving prices up, during cold winter months. But this year, those pipeline constraints are overlaid by extremely competitive energy markets globally and fuel commodity prices that are already higher than normal going into winter.
That’s led to warnings that $1,000 monthly utility bills could be in order.
At the heart of the challenge are New England’s power generation and residential heating profile. Natural gas accounted for 53% of the region’s power in 2021, while gas is widely used for home heating. In Massachusetts, more than half of households used gas to heat their homes in 2020.
At the same time, interstate pipeline infrastructure “has only expanded incrementally over the last several decades” to supply gas to New England, said ISO New England, the region’s grid operator. “Even as reliance on natural gas for home heating and for power generation has grown significantly.”
“During cold weather, most natural gas is committed to local utilities for residential, commercial, and industrial heating. As a result, we are finding that during severe winter weather, many power plants in New England cannot obtain fuel to generate electricity,” ISO New England said in an online review of its grid performance in 2021.
Charles Dickerson, president and CEO of Northeast Power Coordinating Council, said the region is struggling to strike the right balance between meeting its various green energy targets and meeting consumer energy needs during winter. Green energy targets prioritize the deployment of wind and solar over new fossil resources and supporting pipeline capacity. But when the weather turns bitterly cold, there’s a need for more traditional fossil fuels.
In New England’s case, where coal accounted for just 0.5% of generation in 2021, that quickly usable resource of choice has largely been gas.
“The renewable energy objectives in New England are laudable, they’re achievable, but they’re challenging,” Dickerson told the Washington Examiner. Dickerson also noted the lack of control power generators have over the wind and the sun.
What utilities and balancing authorities can provide, then, when renewable generation is down, or demand for gas rises significantly, is limited to the diameter of the pipelines.
“It’s a physics issue. The pipe is only so big, so you can only push with so much gas through it,” Dickerson said. When ready-supply goes down, prices go up. more
63% increase in electricity cost. 34% increase in heat oil increase has already been announced. Somebody is going to be cold this winter.
A lot of trees are going to be cut down for firewood.Hope your happy greeies.
Liberal North East is no place to raise a family.
New England be sure to thank your green cultist neighbor and green corrupted politician for your upcoming energy shortage and bills. It didn’t have to be this way, but you were too stoopid, naive or indoctrinated to understand economics and politics.
Hard to feel sorry for those addicted to the democrat party and completely accepted what communism is all about. Maybe when they’re unable to travel, out of work, frozen and hungry they’ll have time to research what the Green movement is all about.
““It’s a physics issue. The pipe is only so big, so you can only push with so much gas through it,” Dickerson said.”
And the NIMBY’s and the BANANA’s are dead set against any more pipe being laid. So fuck ’em. I hope they get cold.
Maybe they can burn those solar panels on their roofs.😂
Fuck ’em. Let ’em freeze. There is an over abundance of democrats. Let Mother Nature work it out.
Do environmentalists burn good?
Asking for my wood stove.
They wanted to believe in lies like
Global warming
Sustainable Renewable Energy
And even elected jerks who told those lies
And now that their bed has been made
They’re not so sure about sleeping in it
And all the while arrogantly preaching how
soulless everyone else is for not
smoking the same DOPE as them.
They do, Hanoverfist, but they require a high heat sufficient to boil-off their H20 (which causes a temperature reduction) while still oxidizing their fat at a sufficient rate to maintain the combustion.
“…the region is struggling to strike the right balance between meeting its various green energy targets and meeting consumer energy needs during winter.” Are you f*cking kidding me?!? And the worst part is all of this is self inflicted by Democrat policies.
Well, at least when the heat & electricity are cut off & those affected have to resort to cannibalism, the food won’t spoil in the cold.
Our electric bills already doubled this year in Maine.
We just got half a tank of oil and it cost $650!
Our liberal Governors suck.
I’ll bet those idiots in the Northeast hope they get a lump of coal in their Christmas stocking. They’re going to need it.
New York won’t allow new NG pipelines, and they are banning NG in new construction in a few years. When I started in the nat gas industry 22 years ago, ng was considered a lot cleaner than coal, and many electricity producers switched to ng
Brady doesn’t Give A Fuck.
He’s in Tampa and soon he’ll be getting alimony from Gizelle.
Smartest Man On The Planet!
(Good at Foozball Too)