New England Learns, Once Again, Why We Need Natural Gas, Oil, and Coal
On a cold, winter night, the only thing keeping people from braving the elements is the grid’s ability to provide reliable electricity. Although this fact consistently gets swept under the rug in debates over green mandates and reducing carbon emissions, it is obvious when the threat of blackouts increases.
New England came close to this reality during an especially cold week in January. On Jan. 21 at 6 p.m., Independent Systems Operator-New England (ISO-NE) recorded peak hourly demand of 19,600 megawatts (MW), just below its earlier forecast of 20,308 MW in its 2024/2025 winter assessment.
To meet this elevated demand, the grid relied on baseload generation to a greater degree than usual, particularly from oil and coal. As the Energy Information Agency explains, “Between the hours of 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. Eastern time on January 20, 2025, and between the hours of 10:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. on January 21, 2025, thermal plants that burn oil provided more electricity to the ISO-NE electricity grid than plants that burn natural gas, which is relatively uncommon.” High prices and a shortage of natural gas supplies forced ISO-NE to rely on these sources until natural gas supplies increased from a liquified natural gas (LNG) import terminal in Everett, Massachusetts.
Even though everything worked out this time, it is yet another wake-up call for New England and calls into question the wisdom of the political decisions that have threatened the ability of the grid to meet future peak demand. All six states in ISO-NE have renewable portfolio mandates, with Rhode Island and Vermont requiring 100% renewable energy by 2040. Unless these states are planning on building new nuclear power plants — of which there is no evidence — this energy will have to come from unreliable wind and solar generation. Since solar and wind are not dispatchable, they cannot play the same role that coal and oil played in meeting New England’s peak demand.
The states in New England show no indication that they acknowledge this fact. The last two coal-fired power plants in New England are set to close by 2025 and 2028, respectively, and be converted into solar plants and battery units used to store electricity generated from offshore wind. Without these plants, electricity demand or natural gas supply shocks will leave ISO-NE unable to provide enough electricity to its residents and businesses when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow. The North American Electric Reliability Corporation backs this up, finding that New England faces an elevated risk of supply shortfalls after 2026 in their Long-Term Reliability Assessment.
Building more natural gas pipelines would help New England avoid natural gas shortages, but there has been little success in this regard. Proposed pipelines, such as Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct and Spectra’s Access Northeast, had their backers pull out in 2016 due to financial and political challenges. Another option for increasing supply would be to lower LNG transport costs by repealing the Jones Act.
A reliable electric grid needs dispatchable energy sources, such as natural gas, oil, coal, and nuclear, to provide baseload power and meet peak demand. Wind, solar, and battery storage simply do not cut it. While New England avoided this fate last month, their chances of avoiding blackouts in the future don’t look promising if they continue down their current path of replacing reliable energy sources with green alternatives.
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