Increased gas capacity unneeded to meet MA power needs

Additional natural-gas pipeline capacity is not the best solution to meet the state’s longer-term energy demand needs, according to study produced by Attorney General Maura Healey’s office and released on Wednesday.

How’s this for flawed reasoning: The study states natural gas now meets 44 percent of the region’s electricity needs and potentially 50 percent by 2024.

Authors of the study, conducted by economic and financial consulting company Analysis Group Inc., said they took into consideration the recent announcement by the owners of the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth that they planned to close by 2019, resulting in a loss of 680 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power more than 600,000 homes.

Conventional wisdom has held that gas-constrained New England desperately needs additional capacity, but the study released by Healey’s office paints a very different picture of the region’s energy options.

Opponents of the project, including government officials in MA and well-organized community groups in both states, say the project is overbuilt to deal with a few weeks of high natural gas prices in the coldest months of the year.

In discussing the potential to import “distant low-carbon resources” such as Canadian hydropower, the attorney general’s report found that “such imports would need to be backed by firm capacity commitments, including delivery at the time of winter peak”.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the net cost of importing electricity over new transmission lines as a net benefit.

If FERC rules that the project is necessary to meet natural gas demand, it has the legal authority under the Natural Gas Act to grant Kinder Morgan the right to purchase properties at court-ordered prices from reluctant property owners along the path, a process known as eminent domain.

The New England region, for the past two winters, has spent about $7 billion more for electricity than other regions of the country that have easier access to natural gas, the company said.

Peter Shattuck, the clean energy director for the Acadia Center, is part of a diverse group of business, energy and environmental groups that provided input to the study.

“There’s simply no getting around the need for more pipelines to moderate exorbitant electricity prices”, she said. “Instead, the data shows that by investing in energy efficiency and prioritizing renewable alternatives, we can lower energy prices while protecting our air and water”.

“The NED Project is a transformative project for the northeast United States”, said Kinder Morgan East Region Natural Gas Pipelines President Kimberly S. Watson.

“The ultimate goal is to create a reliable supply of energy while also building toward a true green energy future”, Rosenberg said. The company plans to file its final application for the project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday.