Great Britain’s National Grid on Wednesday joined Hartford’s Eversource Energy in a $3 billion pipeline expansion project designed to increase the flow of natural gas into New England.
National Grid, which has 7 million natural gas and electricity customers in New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, agreed to join the Access Northeast project as a co-developer in order to ease the natural gas pipeline constraints that limit the resource’s availability during times of high demand, especially winter.
Eversource, which is the rebranded name for Northeast Utilities dually headquartered in Boston and Hartford, announced the project back in September to expand the capacity of the pipeline by about 1 billion cubic feet. Houston-based Spectra Energy also is a co-developer on the project.
The expansion is the result of increased natural gas usage in New England as the price of the commodity has fallen domestically. Eversource and National Grid stand to benefit because they operate natural gas utilities that provide heat for homes and businesses throughout New England.
The pipeline expansion will provide fuel for 5,000 megawatts of electric generation, with nine Connecticut power plants slated to be connected to it.
After the expansion is complete in late 2018, the region should save between $800 million and $1.2 billion annually in avoided energy costs due to price spikes, according to a study by Virginia consultant ICF International.
