The head of the group responsible for running New England鈥檚 power grid testified before the U.S. Senate this week. At issue was cold winter days and grid reliability.
Gordon van Welie, head of ISO New England, has said for a while now the Northeast has a natural gas problem.
On the coldest days, lots of natural gas gets diverted to heat homes. For power plants, that means high spot prices and less fuel to make electricity.
, ISO New England mentions 鈥渞olling blackouts鈥� if the future grid is unable to meet winter demand. That statement was met with from several energy and advocacy groups.
鈥淲e鈥檙e very close to the edge in New England,鈥� van Welie told lawmakers. 鈥淲e need to find a way of relieving this constraint one way or another. Either through investment in the pipeline infrastructure, or continued investments in other sources of energy that will take the pressure off the gas pipeline, or reducing demand on the system.鈥�
Van Welie told senators in 2013 more gas pipes were needed to solve the problem.
Several attempts to do that failed, and today, van Welie said expanded capacity in the near future.
Van Welie said renewables like wind and solar can help lessen fuel security issues. But, he told lawmakers Tuesday, he鈥檚 unsure they鈥檒l come online fast enough to balance out oil, coal, and nuclear retirements.
鈥淲e have a gas system where the business model is completely different from the electric system,鈥� van Welie said. 鈥淭hat leads to a situation where you don鈥檛 have a customer for the incremental pipeline investments needed to serve the gas generation. I think that鈥檚 a problem we鈥檙e going to struggle with for a while.鈥�
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