Connecticut’s three largest natural gas utilities on Monday filed a plan with state regulators to add 280,000 business and residential customers, the first step in implementing Gov. Dannel Malloy’s $7 billion plan to expand its use as a heating fuel.
Yankee Gas, Connecticut Natural Gas, and Southern Connecticut Gas filed to plan to add the customers over a decade, gradually expanding their distribution and pipeline systems over that same span.
The additions will increase their service territory by 50 percent when complete, authorities said.
The companies did not immediately disclose the cost of the expansion.
The planned expansion is part of Malloy’s comprehensive energy strategy, which seeks to make electricity, heating, and transportation fuel cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable. By making natural gas the home heating fuel of choice, instead of oil, Malloy hopes businesses and residents can take advantage of prices that are currently half of petroleum. Natural gas emits about 30 percent fewer greenhouse gases than heating oil.
The bulk of the cost in Malloy’s $7 billion plan is businesses and homeowners buying furnaces and other necessary equipment to use natural gas. The plan does not include any taxpayer funding and relies on private financing and readjusting ratepayers’ bills.
