THE STATE DEPARTMENT of Public Utilities gave its blessing to a series of agreements between local utilities and Constellation Energy that will keep the liquefied natural gas terminal in Everett open through 2030.
The ruling, released on Friday, approved gas supply contracts between Constellation and National Grid, Eversource, and Unitil that will keep the Everett Marine Terminal running even as its largest customer, the Constellation-owned Mystic Generating Station next door, closes at the end of this month.
The utilities all argued that the Everett terminal was needed as an insurance policy in case supplies of natural gas run short during the winter months. National Grid said its customers in the Boston area would see their average monthly bill increase $3.30 during the winter months because of the contract, which contains provisions putting the utility on the hook for the Everett terminal’s cost of operation even if no gas is needed.
“We find that, without the agreements, each company will not have sufficient natural gas supplies to reliably serve its customers in design-winter scenarios during the term of the agreements, which could jeopardize the health and safety of its customers during the cold winter months,” the DPU said in its decision.
The Mystic Generating Station was propped up for years by the operator of the regional power grid, which assessed New England ratepayers millions of dollars to keep the plant and the Everett Marine Terminal on standby as backup sources of energy. Last year, the grid operator said Mystic was no longer needed and plans were hatched to shut it down at the end of May. That closure would have probably triggered the shutdown of the Everett Marine Terminal, but the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission urged state regulators to find a way to keep it open.
The utilities didn’t reach agreements with Constellation until February. The DPU, which typically moves at a glacial pace, reviewed and approved the contracts on an expedited basis, rejecting concerns raised by Attorney General Andrea Campbell and the Conservation Law Foundation.
Campbell called for approval of the contracts but criticized National Grid in particular for failing to prepare for the shutdown of Mystic and Everett. As a result, Campbell argued, National Grid had no viable alternative to the contract it negotiated to keep the Everett terminal open and its customers will be forced to pay high prices.
The Conservation Law Foundation urged the DPU to reject the utility contracts with the Everett LNG terminal, largely because they didn’t explore “strategic electrification” to reduce demand for natural gas or explore other ways to eliminate the need for the deals. The environmental group also chided National Grid for not coming up with a plan to reduce its dependence on natural gas before the deal with the Everett Marine Terminal runs out in 2030.
The DPU sided across the board with the utilities. But the agency did acknowledge that the rapid pace of deliberations precluded it from delving into a new mandate approved by the Legislature requiring the DPU to take into consideration the impact of its decisions on environmental justice communities, a group that includes Everett.
“The exigencies of the matter at issue here preclude such an examination in these dockets and, rather than articulating any changes in this order to our standard of review or analytical approach that would be applied prospectively, the department finds it appropriate to engage in a more thoughtful, comprehensive process involving the participation of all interested stakeholders rather than just the parties to these proceedings,” the DPU said in its ruling.
The post DPU approves utility deals with Everett LNG terminal appeared first on CommonWealth Beacon.