The Western Interstate Energy Board, the energy wing of the Western Governors Association, voted last week to have the California Energy Commission (CEC) conduct a new western natural gas forecast.

“There are still a lot of details to be worked out, but we agreed to use the CEC,” said Doug Larson, executive director of the governors’ interstate energy group. He said the target is to obtain an assessment of the adequacy of natural gas supplies and infrastructure for serving demand from regional power plants over the next 10 years. “To do that you need to look at overall gas demand, and the CEC runs a North American gas model that takes into account all demand.”

The CEC, California’s power plant-siting and energy research unit, also conducts an annual gas forecast for California, taking into account broader western supply developments and issues, said David Maul, manager of natural gas special projects at the CEC.

Larson said the study by the CEC staff will be done in two phases. The first phase will be done “toward the end of this year,” and the second phase in 2005. Noting no formal announcement on the study is planned at this point, he said “we’re still working through the details.”

Maul, however, said that the study “will include a natural gas supply-demand adequacy forecast as an extension of our forecast into the entire West, [including] both supply adequacy — looking at congested pipelines, making sure we have enough supplies — and pipeline capacity to meet our needs for the next 10 years.”

A similar electric supply adequacy study for the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) is getting underway as well, Maul said, and the gas statistical work will be coordinated with that ongoing forecasting work. “We want to make sure both of the studies are well-integrated together,” he said.

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