Prospects have dimmed for a major new natural gas pipeline to serve New England, after a Massachusetts court ruled that consumers there could not be required to pay for it.
Now, a Boston-based group is proposing to relieve winter gas shortages in Maine by building a liquefaction and storage facility that could hold millions of gallons of liquefied natural gas — and billing Maine consumers for the cost.
The business model goes like this: Big natural gas users — mills, hospitals, electricity generators — would buy a lot of natural gas in the summer, when prices are low. The gas would be supercooled and liquefied, stored in an insulated tank and drawn down on the cold winter days when gas prices can skyrocket.
“So it’s their gas. And then when they direct the facility to release it, it’ll be released and they’ll be able to utilize that gas at the lower price and not the peak demand prices,” says James Cote, a spokesman for developer Maine Energy Storage.
Cote says the facility would be located in either Brewer or Rumford, and the projected $250 million cost would be billed to gas and electricity consumers in Maine. But he says the added storage capacity would help put the brakes on wintertime gas price spikes, and that could benefit all Maine gas or electricity users.
But “overall public benefit” is a basic determination state utility regulators will need to make before the project is given a green light.