Massachusetts Gas Pipeline Dockets
Synapse is providing technical support and expert testimony to the Conservation Law Foundation regarding a series of Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities natural gas pipeline dockets. In these dockets, electric distribution companies have petitioned to embed the costs of natural gas transmission pipelines in customer electric bills. In the most recent dockets (MA 15-181 and MA 16-05), Eversource and National Grid submitted separate analyses on the long-term economic benefits of Algonquin’s proposed Access Northeast natural gas pipeline infrastructure project. Synapse assessed the methodology and assumptions of the benefits in the analyses submitted by Eversource and National Grid. Specifically, Synapse reviewed the results of scenarios modeling New England’s future electric sector with and without the Access Northeast pipeline to determine whether the modeling assumptions (1) were consistent with compliance with state and federal environmental laws and (2) represented “most likely” projections of uncertain future conditions.