Expensive New England winter is coming
By Jeremy Beaman, Energy and Environment Reporter
September 22, 2022 11:00 PM
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."
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