Assessment of National Grid's Long-Term Capacity Report

Eastern Environmental Law Center
Project completed April 2020

On behalf of the Eastern Environmental Law Center (EELC), Synapse and subcontractor John Rosenkranz conducted a comprehensive assessment of National Grid’s Capacity Report released February 24, 2020. National Grid's Capacity Report detailed gas peak demand forecasts through the winter of 2034/35, modeling both High Demand and Low Demand scenarios. The report then assessed various long-term gas solutions to fill these gaps. These potential solutions included various large-scale gas infrastructure projects such as the NESE pipeline and LNG facilities, as well as a “No Infrastructure” option which solely relies on additional demand-side resources.

Our analysis found various errors in National Grid’s assessments of the rate of customer conversion from oil to natural gas for the load forecasts, expected levels and costs of energy efficiency and heat pumps under existing or expanded policies and programs, and gas supply resources. The report concludes that corrections to these errors and appropriate treatment of demand-side measures, with or without small changes in National Grid’s supply planning assumptions, eliminates the need for any of the large-scale infrastructure investments examined in the Capacity Report.