Pipeline Expansion Highlights Key Questions About Gas in New England
A relatively small project aiming to increase gas pipeline capacity into New England is raising larger underlying questions about how the region will balance gas reliability and affordability with longer-term efforts to transition away from natural gas.
In joint comments submitted earlier in October, the Acadia Center and the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) wrote that the DPU must consider how the contracts “will impact not only Eversource customers, but also other gas customers, including National Grid and Unitil, whose contracts with Constellation mirror [Eversource’s].”
Climate and consumer advocates have argued that Massachusetts must be careful not to make long-term investments in the gas system that end up becoming stranded assets. Some advocates see the 10-year duration of Eversource’s proposed Algonquin expansion contracts as reflecting uncertainty about long-term gas demand on the distribution system.
Joe LaRusso, senior advocate at the Acadia Center, said he is skeptical that gas utilities will experience enough new demand to support a “a substantial increase in gas capacity into the region.”
He added that pipeline companies looking to build major new projects “can’t find the off-takers for this stuff; they can’t get it built.”
Acadia and CLF’s comments on Eversource’s contracts with Enbridge focus on Eversource’s underlying assumptions about its forecasted gas demand between 2029 and 2039. The groups highlight data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration indicating that overall residential, commercial and industrial gas demand in Massachusetts declined between 2019 and 2024.
They wrote that Eversource has provided “no basis to determine what their gas requirement will be over the term of the proposed contracts,” nor data on how “declines in statewide gas consumption in those sectors might ultimately influence either their overall consumption or their design day supply.”
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