By Alan Rukin
The
Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis (“JISEA”) recently issued a report projecting an
increase in the use of natural gas as a fuel for electric generation across five
different scenarios. JISAE is a partnership between the U.S. Department of
Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the University of
Colorado-Boulder, the Colorado School of Mines, the Colorado State University,
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University.
In most
of the studied scenarios, the report projects that the use of natural gas as a generation
fuel will increase between 50% and 100% by 2030 and between 100% and 200% by
2050 when compared to 2010 levels. In the baseline scenario, the report
projects that, by 2050, natural gas could represent between 28% to 38% of the
nation’s generation as compared to 2010, where natural gas represented about 20%.
Across all but one of the studied scenarios, the report projects that the
electric industry will continue and expand its dependence on natural gas as a
fuel source. The report also notes that coal’s share as a generation fuel has declined
from 48% to 36% of total generation between 2008 and August 2012 based on
information the Energy Information Administration collected.
This August,
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission held a series of regional technical
conferences on efforts to increase coordination between the electric and
natural gas industries. This November, FERC scheduled additional technical
conferences to expand on those it held in August. Previous posts by the Energy Law Times
concerning electric-gas coordination issues can be found by clicking here
and here.
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