American Gas - August/September 2013 - (Page 18)

aP Photo/Fred Beckham s tat e h o u s e Spreading Out Three gas companies aim to hook up half of Connecticut hartfOrD, Ct—Connecticut’s three major natural gas companies have jointly filed plans with state regulators to expand their customer base by more than half over the coming decade. Yankee Gas, Southern Connecticut Gas, and Connecticut Natural Gas want to use the new incentives created by the state’s recently adopted Comprehensive Energy Strategy to help them sign up an additional 280,000 residential and commercial customers over the next 10 years. The Comprehensive Energy Strategy, proposed by Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy and approved by the legislature earlier this year, encourages increased natural gas usage to save residents money on their utility bills and cut greenhouse gas emissions in the state. Currently, the state has fewer than 500,000 residential gas customers, or about 32 percent of the population. In Massachusetts, 47 percent of residents are connected to natural gas; in Rhode Island, it’s 48 percent, according to state statistics. Rod Powell, president and chief operating officer of Yankee Gas, said in a statement that the utilities’ goal is to increase market share from 32 to 50 percent. The state estimates that 217,000 Connecticut residents live close to gas mains but are not heating their homes with gas. It would cost an average of $7,500 to connect and would save them $800 annually on their utility bills. The Comprehensive Energy Strategy legislation expands some existing loan programs and launches some new financing options to help them pay those costs. The legislation also allows utilities to spread the cost recovery for new distribution lines over a period of 25 years. Currently, Yankee Gas charges ratepayers over 15 years, and Southern Connecticut and Connecticut Natural gas, 20 years. In their filing, the utilities estimate that the conversion will save new customers a total of $436 million per year on their utility bills and cut carbon dioxide emissions by 820,000 tons, or 7 percent. Connecting new customers will create 500 new construction and utility jobs a 18 AmericAn GAs august/september 2013 Connecticut Gov. Dannel Molloy’s Comprehensive Energy Strategy encourages increased use of natural gas. year once the plans ramp up. Michael West, a spokesman for UIL Holdings Corp.—parent company of Southern Connecticut Gas and Connecticut Natural Gas—told American Gas that the three companies decided to file together because they were in agreement over their designated territories and the best means to proceed with expansion. State regulators are expected to respond to their filing within the next couple of months. West said that over the past three years the two UIL utilities had already converted more than 30,000 new customers and were on track to sign up another 55,000 over the next two years. Getting approval to use incentives introduced in the Comprehensive Energy Strategy will help keep the momentum going. “We can tell more customers ‘Yes,’ instead of ‘I’m sorry,’” he said. —J.P.T. s tat e h o u s e Make Way for Pipeline Maine’s PUC can now enter long-term capacity contracts augusta, me—The Maine legislature recent- ly passed a bill giving the state’s public utilities commission the authority to enter into long-term contracts for natural gas pipeline capacity. State Sen. John Cleveland, the bill’s sponsor, told American Gas that residents of Maine are paying too much for electricity because there is a lack of pipeline capacity from the Marcellus Shale region into New England. By entering into long-term capacity contracts, the PUC would be encouraging pipeline development, and that would result in lower natural gas costs for Maine’s electric utilities, he said. Cleveland said that electric utilities have had no incentive to enter into such contracts themselves because they’ve been able to simply

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Gas - August/September 2013

American Gas - August/September 2013
Contents
President’s Message
Subject Index
Dual-Fuel CNG Beauties
Digest
Issues
Issues
Issues
Need to Know
By the Numbers
Places
In Las Vegas, Another Man-Made Wonder
State House
State House
Elm Street
Main Street
A Matter of Trust
Profile
Here Comes the Grid
Marketing
Jobs
Vendor News
Marketplace
Headway

American Gas - August/September 2013