As the list of planned new natural gas-fired power plants inCalifornia lengthens, state officials have begun to survey thedeliverability of resources to fuel those plants.

“We’re in the process of redoing our projections, as we do everytwo years, and we can see the possibility of some additionalpipelines coming into California,” said Dan Nix, deputy director,energy information and analysis, for the California EnergyCommission. “At this point, I can’t tell you what time frame or howmany pipelines.”

The state depends on supplies from outside the state for 80% ofits gas requirements. Gas supply and deliverability problemsincreasingly carry greater impact on power system reliability forthe state.

The state energy commission’s primary role is the siting of newpower plants. As an adjunct, the agency does ongoing energy supplyand demand studies, including analyses of renewable energy andenergy efficiency programs. The California Public UtilitiesCommission concentrates on energy infrastructure operations, policyand pricing, such as its ongoing efforts to complete unbundling ofboth electricity and natural gas.

The state’s nearly 18-month-old natural gas restructuringproceedings, however, have not examined how the gas infrastructureand supply availability will mesh with an increasinglynonstate-regulated power generation sector. Similarly, in theenergy commission proceedings to OK new power plants, there is noassessment made about the adequacy of the plant developers’ gassupply contracts. The market increasingly will be making thesedeterminations, according to Nix. In a general supply and pricecontext, Nix said, California keeps track of broad-based resourcedevelopments, using the “North American Regional Gas Model,” whichhe says over the past 10 years have proven to be “surprisinglyaccurate.”

Noting that except for one 80 MW, coal-fired plant, all thecurrent merchant power plants proposed nationwide are supposed tobe fired by natural gas. “I don’t know if that is good or bad news,but I know that gas burns very cleanly and we have some developersthat are talking about building plants with one- ortwo-parts-per-million of NOx emissions and no others to speak of.These are extremely clean plants and they are much more efficientthan the old ones they are going to be replacing.”

Nix said that predictions on the amounts of increased gas loadsrequired by new power plants in the state can be made with arelatively high degree of certainty, but the reliability of futuregas supplies will be impacted by other factors, such as the volumesdiverted to transportation uses; distributed power plants off thegrid and the impact of price swings.

In California, the electric grid’s state-chartered, quasi-publicIndependent System Operator, with the assistance of Pacific Gas andElectric, has completed a study this year examining the impact ofextremely cold weather, spiking the use of gas for space heating,on the gas pipeline network’s ability to keep pipelines servingelectric generation plants full. The study supposedly identifiessome strategically located generation plants that may need a dualfuel-such as oil-for backup in an emergency. Another scenario beingexamined, Nix said, looks at potential bottlenecks in the state gastransmission pipeline system.

“You can’t say that there are not any [potential bottlenecks],”he said. “We have 29 [merchant power plant] projects in some formof development – four or five in the Bakersfield area alone. If allof those are built, it is very likely someone would have to augmentthe gas pipeline system in that area. It is really a function ofhow many [generation plants] and where.”

Richard Nemec, Los Angeles

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