National Grid aims for large decrease in emissions by 2050
National Grid, which delivers natural gas to 3.4 million customers in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, has a new blueprint to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050 across the Northeast.
The utility recently released its Northeast 80x50 Pathway, which outlines a plan to reduce emissions economy-wide while “supporting economic growth and maintaining affordability and customer choice.”
“Our approach combines several mutually reinforcing strategies that together provide a clear pathway to significant emissions reductions and signal a paradigm shift in the way we all relate to energy. National Grid is keen to achieve greater collaboration within the Northeast on this pressing and critical issue,” the utility stated in the blueprint.
To reduce the risk that global temperature increases more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries must fall by approximately 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050—hence the name “80x50.”
The blueprint calls for three big shifts in energy systems by 2030, one of which is to convert oil-heated buildings to natural gas where beneficial to customers.
Oil-to-gas conversions, which achieve GHG reductions of more than 27 percent per home, will need to accelerate over the period, bolstered by investment in growing the regional supply of renewable natural gas.
In the Pathway, new natural gas demand in the residential sector is partially offset by accelerated energy efficiency investment, so even though the total number of residential natural gas customers rises significantly, total usage grows at a comparatively modest pace over the period.
Significant large-scale renewable energy development, along with electricity and natural gas transmission capacity growth, will be required to keep both electricity and natural gas affordable, the blueprint said.
The utility also plans to invest in emerging technologies to support the decarbonization of the natural gas network, Rudolph Wynter, president and COO for transmission, generation and energy procurement at National Grid, said in an interview reported online on EnergyWire.
These technologies focus on renewable natural gas procured from wastewater treatment facilities and harvested from farming waste streams, he said.