natural gas

This blog is the first in a series looking into the key insights of the newly released 2015 Regional Roundup of Energy Efficiency Policy in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States.

Thanks to Shanna Cleveland and Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) for this piece outlining three crucial points you may not be aware of surrounding the natural gas/winter peak conversation.

Thanks to Greg Cunningham and Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) for this cogent look at the many intricacies of Natural Gas markets and big, related pipeline question marks.

This summer, we’ve seen the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states continue tackle the major themes outlined at last month’s NEEP Summit in Newport: modernizing the electric grid, de-carbonizing the electric sector, and managing electric-gas infrastructure constraints in New England.

You can practically hear the hand-wringing. New England is increasingly dependent on natural gas for electricity generation, and in a long cold winter such as we’ve just experienced, heating need puts a squeeze on this energy feedstock, causing wholesale prices to skyrocket.

Energy efficiency policy work doesn’t always make for great conversation at dinner parties. Energy efficiency represents energy and money not wasted, so it’s less tangible than new solar panels or a natural gas well. And much of NEEP’s work is behind the scenes, spread across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states in regulatory proceedings that can be hard to follow, on topics that may not, on the surface, sound very interesting. The energy efficiency policies we follow certainly haven’t captured media attention the way that the future of the Keystone XL pipeline has.