Criticism Mounts Over National Grid's Handling of Newport Gas Emergency, Company Responds
GoLocalProv News Team
Criticism Mounts Over National Grid's Handling of Newport Gas Emergency, Company Responds
Back in January, National Grid was forced to shut off natural gas to 7,100 customers triggering a State of Emergency in Rhode Island on Aquidneck Island.
Mounting Criticism
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTLt. Governor Dan McKee said he agreed with findings of the DPUC investigation -- which found fault with both Grid and Enbridge.
His statement comes after he introduced legislation requiring National Grid to file comprehensive emergency preparedness plans each year and enables the State to levy fines if a utility fails to comply with performance standards.
McKee released the following statement:
“The Division’s report outlines serious fault on behalf of Enbridge and National Grid. I strongly endorse the Division’s position not to support any attempt by National Grid to recuperate storm-related costs from hardworking Rhode Islanders. However, a denial of reimbursement does not provide relief to the many residents and small businesses who have not been fully reimbursed for costs incurred during the outage.
The report underscores the inadequacy of Rhode Island’s current law on utility accountability. Our State regulators lack the authority to issue meaningful fines to hold utilities to a high standard as allowed by law in neighboring states. In the last two legislative sessions, my office introduced a bill modeled after a successful Massachusetts law that will give Rhode Island the tools necessary to demand accountability from National Grid and issue fines when they fail to meet emergency preparedness and response standards. The legislation ensures that all fines paid by the utility company’s shareholders are credited back to local ratepayers. We hope the Division’s report strengthens our case when we reintroduce our legislation next year.”
McKee’s statement comes after Senator Dawn Euer issued the following statement on Wednesday.
Euer, who represents Aquidneck Island, said the following statement:
I appreciate the Division of Public Utilities and Carriers’ (DPUC) work to conduct this investigation and compile this report. I fully agree the DPUC — utilities should not pass the costs of the Aquidneck Island gas outage on to the customers. It’s important to note that the outage was not simply caused by low supply, but by a combination of three factors — including equipment failure at two separate sites. I think that Aquidneck Island residents can take comfort in knowing the root cause of the outage as we enter into the heating season.
I think it’s also important that this outage is not used to push for additional interstate pipelines. Instead, there are reasonable recommendations in the report that can be implemented to further reduce the risk of a potential outage. Those include sectionalized gas districts in Newport and creating an outage mapping and tracking process. Anyone who remembers the situation in January knows the issue went from bad to worse. Then everyone had to be shut off from their gas heat before anyone could be brought back online.
Creating a mapping and tracking process could have prevented the situation from snowballing. Sectionalized districts could have allowed heat to be restored sooner in sections of the city at a time. But, at the end of the day, the report really only focused on how to improve the gas system. Improving this system is clearly necessary given the Aquidneck Island outage, which came on the heels of the Merrimack Valley gas explosion.
We need to also reflect on the bigger policy questions: Should we be doubling down on gas infrastructure? Or should we use this opportunity to push forward on renewable technologies that are more cost-effective and don’t contribute to climate change?
I will be continuing to push for Rhode Island to act on climate — that means taking a holistic approach to these issues. Working with my Rhode Island Senate colleagues, I hope we can implement some of the policy recommendations outlined in the DPUC report as well as forward thinking energy policies.
National Grid Responds
“Last winter we experienced an unprecedented gas supply event. The Aquidneck Island community and National Grid were part of an extraordinary response that included a thousand employees and tens of thousands of residents coming together to help each other through those challenging days and nights. Everything we did in the minutes, hours, and days following was driven by a need to ensure the safety of our customers.
Since then, we have been working hard to learn from that event and take what actions we can to provide secure energy for Aquidneck Island. Over the last several months, we have fully cooperated with the federal investigation as well as the Division of Public Utilities and Carriers in their summary investigation. We have answered hundreds of data requests and met with them on multiple occasions to help determine what can be done to help protect against another supply interruption.
Although we don’t agree with everything in the report, we are pleased the Division’s report reflects National Grid’s fundamental commitment to safety and our exemplary emergency response. And we are appreciative of their diligence in examining all aspects of the incident, including the areas where we excelled and where we could improve. In fact, we have already addressed many of the proposed recommendations included in their report, securing additional winter gas supplies, expanding our energy efficiency and demand response programs, and improving long-range planning.
While we will carefully review these reports over the coming days, the findings confirm our concerns regarding the operations of the Algonquin transmission system. Had the transmission system performed as expected, the outage would not have occurred. More importantly, we are focused on the winter ahead and Rhode Island’s energy future. The Aquidneck community should have confidence that gas reliability and future gas service on the Island are a top priority for us. As the local gas distribution company, we are here working with our communities and taking the steps necessary to meet this objective. We want to do everything possible to secure the ongoing energy needs of Aquidneck Island.”