National Grid Submits Austerity Implementation Plan

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National Grid yesterday submitted an austerity implementation filing plan in order to safely connect about 1,000 inactive accounts to its natural gas system, but the company remains adamant it will need additional supplies to service about 2,600 requests for new or expanded service.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo

The required implementation filing, as per Gov. Ander Cuomo and the state’s Public Service Commission’s (PSC) order earlier this month, also outlines in greater detail contingency plans the company is taking this winter to address the expected curtailment of natural gas supplies.

“Once we received the order, we immediately activated an implementation plan to reconnect natural gas service to a limited number of applicants,” said National Grid New York President John Bruckner. “The first objective of this plan was to contact all applicants outlined in the order. Once contact is made with each of these applicants, the
The company’s goal is to connect them within two weeks after they confirm they have secured the essential records such as permits, pressure testing and building certificates, and are ready to accept service. And we have since made steady progress on the number of applicants we’ve successfully contacted, scheduled appointments with and reconnected to the system.”

However, in order to meet the additional capacity required, National Grid will promote off-peak usage through financial incentives and take the unprecedented action of contacting large firm customers who were previously “interruptible” customers and incentivizing them to go back to non-firm service.

These are customers who could activate a back-up alternative fuel system, generally oil, to reduce gas load during winter peak hours.

“While these unprecedented measures will provide some ability to connect this relatively small set of applicants and customers in the short-term, we still need additional, long-term and firm supplies of natural gas,” added Bruckner. “Because of this underlying supply issue, the service connection restrictions currently in place must remain in effect
for all other customers who’ve requested new or expanded service.”

The implementation plan also describes natural gas contingency plans for this winter including several short-term solutions like portable compressed natural gas stations and competing with other utilities to add a higher than usual percentage of gas supply from commodity markets.

“Again, these are not permanent solutions to meet peak-day demand requirements to ensure system reliability for National Grid’s existing 1.8 million customers,” said Bruckner.

The filing comes as National Grid remains deadlocked with Gov. Cuomo and a large number of lawmakers, who are committed to get rid of all fossil fuels for a green new deal.  Thus, Cuomo has denied National Grid twice their proposal to tap into the Williams Pipeline, which would connect to an existing pipeline going from Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The energy giant, which is the largest distributor of natural gas in the northeast and provides gas to 1.8 million customers in Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Long Island, says without the pipeline it will not be able to meet the growing demands for natural gas.

Cuomo and a number of lawmakers are calling for a stronger investigation – including more transparency – often characterizing National Grid as holding the state’s natural gas needs hostage unless they get the pipeline.

But a National Grid spokesperson Karen Young insisted the company has been very cooperative with the ongoing investigation and has provided all the information requested and is awaiting its results.

“We will continue to work with all parties to address customer supply constraints and customer connection issues,” said Young.