February 28, 2020 | By Mike Henchen and Sherri Billimoria
A prolonged battle over a natural gas pipeline in New York is presenting state officials with a critical decision point and an opportunity to establish themselves as national leaders in climate action. In contrast to utility National Grid’s proposal to build a $1 billion gas pipeline to serve customers in New York City and Long Island, there is another path to meet those energy needs, utilizing customer-focused solutions like energy efficiency, electrification, and demand response.
Resisting the call for new gas infrastructure and charting a different course requires bold, unprecedented steps, but such ambitious action is better for residents’ health and critical to meeting the state’s ambitious climate goals, and can also be cost-effective.
How We Got Here
For months, National Grid has been locked in a contentious fight with Governor Andrew Cuomo and environmental groups over the proposed Northeast Supply Enhancement Project (NESE), a major new gas pipeline that would run into New York City. National Grid proposed the pipeline to keep up with projections for rising gas demand in downstate New York, and when its proposal was rejected by New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation last year, the utility stopped connecting new customers to gas service. After a heated back and forth with Cuomo, National Grid committed to presenting a range of long-term solutions to close the projected gap between gas supply and demand in the region.
National Grid detailed its vision in a report released this week. The wide-ranging analysis describes the utility’s expectations for a capacity shortfall in the coming years and a range of options to close that gap. The main options presented include the NESE pipeline, smaller infrastructure solutions like a new gas line within Staten Island or upgrades to compressor stations in New York and Connecticut; or customer-focused solutions that do not require new infrastructure: energy efficiency, demand response, and electrification. Other options, such as a new liquefied natural gas terminal on Long Island, appear unrealistic.
The NESE Pipeline Is Incompatible with New York’s Climate Policy
Gas use is a major part of New York’s climate and air pollution woes. New York consumes more gas in its buildings than any other state. It’s also the top state in terms of direct building emissions, contributing 10 percent of the nation’s total.
Last year, New York’s legislature and Governor Cuomo made a major commitment to climate action, passing the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). The CLCPA commits the state to emissions reductions of 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2030 and 85 percent by 2050. Along the way, the state’s electricity system must be 70 percent renewable by 2030 and 100 percent emissions-free by 2040.
To meet these goals, the state will have to make dramatic reductions in the emissions from gas burned in buildings and is actively developing a roadmap to a carbon-neutral building stock statewide. National Grid’s latest projections, showing gas use growing through 2035, are simply incompatible with the required emissions reductions.
The only path that enables the level of emissions cuts required is the customer-focused package of energy efficiency, electrification, and demand response. Unlike the other solutions offered, these initiatives—particularly efficiency and electrification—reduce gas use and directly cut fossil fuel emissions.
National Grid has presented this information in a confusing manner, providing charts indicating both that electrification could increase electricity emissions more than continued gas use and that electrification will reduce emissions substantially over time. However, with the rapid decarbonization of the electricity system required by policy, it is clear that shifting from gas heat to electric heat pumps will cut emissions and put the state on a path to hit its long term targets, while continued gas use will not.
The report notes that biomethane (RNG), hydrogen, and potentially synthetic methane from power-to-gas processes could play a valuable role in eliminating greenhouse gas emissions. However, it also shows that these resources can play only a small part in addressing the downstate supply issue – covering less than 5 percent of the supply gap in the high demand scenario, and subject to uncertainty regarding new project development over time.
And even to the extent these resources would be brought in from outside the region served by a new pipeline, their costs and implementation hurdles are not addressed in the report, leaving a comparison between one solution consistent with state climate policy (efficiency, electrification, and demand response) and one solution inconsistent with these climate goals (NESE pipeline).
Read more at https://rmi.org/new-york-can-meet-its-energy-needs-without-a-new-pipeline/
Leave a Reply