A major environmental group in New England foresees a “fairlyimmediate” need for expansion of two new pipelines in the regionand for “significant” additional pipe capacity to satisfy thenatural gas demands of power plants that are planned for that area.

While environmentalists are known to generally oppose pipelineprojects, the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) of Boston, MA, iswelcoming additional gas pipeline capacity into the New Englandregion to help reduce its dependence on dirty fossil fuels as asource of its electricity.

“CLF is concerned that there be sufficient gas supply broughtinto New England to ensure that market-driven development of new,clean natural gas power plants is not constrained,” Richard B.Kennelly Jr., staff attorney for the group, told FERC in a recentletter.

A report by The NorthBridge Group, which was commissioned byCLF, suggested that compression expansion of two new pipelinesystems, Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline and Portland NaturalGas Transmission System (PNGTS), could meet much of the gas needsof the new power plant facilities that are planned for New England.It believes capacity on PNGTS-which went into operation earlierthis year-could be more than tripled through additionalcompression, and that capacity on Maritimes-which still is beingconstructed-could be expanded 50% or more.

These expansions would be “quicker and cheaper” than buildinggreenfield pipelines to supply new gas-fired power generationfacilities, according to the NorthBridge report. But CLF doesn’tthink that expanding PNGTS-Maritimes’ capacity alone will beenough, Kennelly said. It also believes there will be a need”within four years” for about 480-800 MMcf/d of new pipe capacityin New England.

That’s because its estimate for new power plant construction inthe region is more bullish than others. While “conventional wisdom”predicts that about 9,000 MWs of new gas plants will beconstructed, CLF puts the number closer to 12,000-14,000 MWs in thecurrent “wave” of plant development, Kennelly noted.

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