Utility Dive highlights the importance of moving away from natural gas reliance in California, quoting Sarah Steinberg and Brian Turner on the importance of demand-side management, batteries, hydro storage, and more.

As California reels from the impact of high natural gas prices this winter – as well as the ripple effects on the electricity sector – some experts are urging policy-makers to focus on reducing the state’s dependence on natural gas in the first place.

Gas prices in the West touched their highest annual point in the second half of December and began to subside in January, although still at a relatively high level. CAISO pointed to several reasons for that in its recent report: colder than usual temperatures in the West and Canada pushed up gas demand; there were lower gas storage inventories than usual – in part because of the higher gas usage during the heatwave California experienced last summer; as well as California’s lack of local gas supply and position at the end of the interstate pipeline system. 

Demand-side management is one of the best short-term policies that policymakers and consumers have at their fingertips to mitigate the impact of gas and electricity price swings, according to Brian Turner, policy director, Western states, with Advanced Energy United. This can include adjusting electricity use through consumer behavior, but also using advanced energy devices. 

“Much of the new advanced energy devices that exist and are coming on the market allow consumers to do that without having to think too much about it – they can set it and forget it,” Turner said. 

And a potential long-term play is getting California off dependence on volatile gas prices by adding more clean resources, like renewables, clean firm resources, and battery storage, said Turner. 

As energy officials in California conduct their long-term power planning, “they need to update their projections of gas prices so that that volatility is reflected… so as you’re making a long-term resource decision, the volatile, risky gas investments are less attractive…” he said.

The state can look at adding more batteries, using hydro storage that’s available, and in the longer term, enlisting load and resource diversity across the widest Western footprint possible. 

As California seeks to do this, conversations around better connecting the broader Western grid will become especially important, according to Sarah Steinberg, director at Advanced Energy United.

That includes better transmission as well as “creating that market platform, where states can both be exporting and importing according to their needs and access clean energy wherever across the West it is being produced at any given time – so that reduces the need for these individual [gas] plants that set that high marginal cost,” Steinberg said. 

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