Officials at Eversource are raising a red flag ahead of what is already forecasted to be a costly winter for customers, and are calling on the president to step in.
In a three-page letter to the White House, Eversource CEO Joe Nolan urged President Joe Biden to use his presidential power to change national policy and let foreign flag ships sail into Boston from the Gulf of Mexico.
As it stands, tankers carrying liquified natural gas, or LNG, come into port at Everett several times a year, but due to them being foreign ships, under U.S. law, they can only make one stop in the country. Due to the law, ships that come to the U.S. to fill up with LNG in the Gulf of Mexico are not allowed to then transport the American product to Boston Harbor.
“All of the fuel in America around LNG is leaving in tankers and going to ports around the world – it’s a global market,” said Eversource CEO Joe Nolan. “We can’t get it to come here to Everett.”
Nolan’s concern is that during the coming winter and its coldest weather, there may be cases where there is not enough natural gas to fire up power plants.
“These are folks that need to have fuel and they don’t have a guaranteed fuel supply during these winter months because we need to heat your home with gas,” Nolan during a news conference.
The results of a shortage could be rolling brownouts or blackouts, translating to no power to run residential furnaces.
“I’m worried about a peak day, when we hit a polar vertex and our customers, everyone’s got their heat on, I mean, I do not want to be in a situation that they were in Texas or they were in California, where customers were really faced with some real (challenges) and really devastating circumstances,” Nolan said.
Customer rates are already rising steeply, with fellow power provider National Grid already announcing that its winter rates, which went into effect on Nov. 1, will see customers be hit with a 64% increase. That could raise the average customer’s bill from $179 a month to $293, excluding delivery charges.
“I don’t think there’s an energy crisis in the United States,” said Brian Bethune, a professor at Boston College. “The U.S. has a very significant oil and gas sector. This crisis that’s kind of unfolding is more in Europe.”
Eversource’s rates are slated to go up as well after the first of the year.
“I think everybody’s looking at a similar increase,” said Nolan. “And that’s, again, it goes back to the supply issue. The fact of the matter is, we are dependent on a global fuel price.”
Earlier in September, the company predicted its gas customers could see their bills rise anywhere from 25% to 38%.
Bethune chalked this up to the war in Ukraine and the sanctions that followed. Russia has stopped exporting natural gas to the west in response.
Home heating oil costs are also up: nearly $6 a gallon this year compared to $3.32 at this time last year.
Action for Boston Community Development, which serves Boston, Brookline, Newton and several other communities, said federally funded assistance is available for lower income people. Income thresholds for help have risen, so a couple with four children making just over $100,000 can still get some help.
“This program was never designed to take care of all of one’s heating bills during the heating season, but to get them through the most critical periods so that nobody goes without heat,” said Kathy Tobin, director of fuel assistance for ABCD.
Households can get up to $1,600 to help with electrical bills per season and about $1,100 to help with home heating.
(Copyright (c) 2024 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)