The Comprehensive Energy Strategy finalized Feb. 19 by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy seeks to more than double the number of Connecticut businesses with access to natural gas, while leaning heavily on utilities and consumers to foot the bill for any infrastructure.
The final version of the draft strategy that was published last fall also calls for upgrades to the state”™s electric grid and an increased emphasis on alternative fuels, while centralizing information on the state”™s energy efficiency programs on EnergizeCT.com and charging the state Office of Energy Efficient Businesses with helping firms find ways to cut their energy costs.
The strategy, which is to be updated by the state Department of Energy & Environmental Protection (DEEP) and the Connecticut Energy Advisory Board every three years, aims for 75 percent of the state”™s businesses to have access to natural gas by 2020.
Currently, 35 percent of the state”™s businesses are able to switch to natural gas, said Dennis Schain, DEEP spokesman.
“The plan calls upon the gas utilities to submit detailed plans for building out the infrastructure,” Schain said. “It”™s largely paid for with the gas companies financing the expansion and new customers starting to pay monthly bills, which then provides revenues to the gas companies.”
A representative of Yankee Gas Service Co., a Northeast Utilities subsidiary and one of three natural gas companies that operate in Connecticut, said the utility supports Malloy”™s plan to increase access to natural gas.
“Expanding access to cheap, domestic natural gas, we believe, will lead to dramatic reductions in emissions, savings on the average family”™s heating bills, and it will also stimulate local economic development and job creation,” said Mitch Gross, a spokesman for Yankee Gas, which is based in Berlin and serves customers in Stamford, Danbury and Norwalk, among other towns and cities across the state.
Gross said there are a number of details around the Comprehensive Energy Strategy that still need to be worked out by state officials, lawmakers and the Connecticut Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA). He said it is too early to speculate on how consumers”™ bills would be affected by any infrastructure changes.
“It would be premature to talk specifics at this point, but there are a lot of positives for customers ”” choice being the number one,” Gross said.
The Connecticut chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business voiced its support for the expansion of natural gas.
In Hartford, the Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA) was also supportive of the overall plan but a representative said fine-tuning is still needed.
“In terms of the overall focus of the strategy, I think it”™s a really good starting point,” said Eric Brown, associate counsel for CBIA. “Now we have to do the hard work of figuring out how to implement it in the most cost-effective way and in a way where the benefits are experienced by the widest variety of ratepayers possible.”
Brown said the cost of expanding access to natural gas and of other electrical grid upgrades must be worked out at the state level.
He said a proposed mandate that towns and cities score commercial and industrial buildings based on their energy consumption is a concern. Brown also reiterated CBIA”™s position that a tax on energy generation set to expire in June not be renewed in the upcoming budget.
Malloy has called for an extension of the tax, which CBIA says could add more than $70 million to consumers”™ energy bills.
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