New England relies on oil to keep the Christmas lights on

By Paige Lambermont of CEI.

"Oil, and the refined products that it produces, has many uses for which it’s incredibly well suited. Being burned in power plants that generally rely on natural gas isn’t one of them. New England is continually plagued by its lack of sufficient natural gas pipeline infrastructure and cold temperatures often require gas plants to run on backup oil because home heating has priority claim on the limited gas.

This Christmas, New England’s grid, ISO New England, is once again relying on oil to make up the difference on the grid. Two years ago, amid freezing temperatures on Christmas Day, the largest source of power generation on the New England grid was oil. There was also a significant amount of oil on the grid on the 23^rd and 24^th.

This year, the New England grid was 12 percent oil on the 22^nd, with lower but still notable oil use on the 23^rd and 24^th. Seven percent of ISO New England’s resource mix was oil on December 24th.

Writer and power grid expert Meredith Angwin, who lives in Vermont, consistently points out when the power mix in New England includes oil. In her book, Shorting the Grid, she has a chapter called “Oil Saves the Grid.” This chapter outlines the incentives that have led to oil being used in the region’s natural gas power plants when natural gas is unavailable. As New England has relied increasingly on natural gas for power, it has failed to make concomitant investments in natural gas pipelines.

Oil is comparatively expensive as a fuel for power plants and does not burn efficiently in these scenarios. Oil fuel for power plants is almost exclusively used as a stopgap during times of high demand, and for good reason.

New England should take these occasions as a reason to invest in new pipeline capacity, especially as the Jones Act’s requirements that vessels be US-owned, built, crewed, and registered to move goods between two US ports make it nearly impossible to move liquified natural gas (LNG) between US ports because there are no LNG tankers that meet these requirements. This means that pipelines remain New England’s best option for timely LNG delivery.

Although pipeline development is a fraught issue that involves federal, state, and local government action and regulation, New England states would be wise to remember the importance of these pipelines to their ability to keep the lights (and heating) on during cold winter nights."