Natural Gas in New Hampshire

PRS Briefs
PRS Policy Brief 1415-04
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Hamza
Abbasi
'16
Jordan
Einhorn
'17
Maggie
Fiertz
'15
Mark
Sheridan
'15
Leehi
Yona
'16
prs_brief_1415-04.pdf

This report presents an overview of natural gas and its role in New Hampshire’s energy future. There has a been a large increase in the use of natural gas in New England in the past decade, but the infrastructure for transporting natural gas has not been updated. Infrastructure constrains have been a contributing factor to volatile energy prices in New England. This paper provides an in depth background of natural gas and energy trends in New Hampshire and New England. The report aims to give the New Hampshire House Science, Technology, and Energy Committee an overview of natural gas and the potential options for reducing capacity constraints on New Hampshire’s natural gas infrastructure. The different options have varying implications for the role of natural gas in New Hampshire’s energy future. Building new pipelines would result in a longer-term commitment to using natural gas as a fuel source than short-term options such as improving existing natural gas infrastructure and incentivizing energy efficiency.