CT gas utilities customer conversions continue to slip against targets

Photo | Contributed An Eversource crew installs a natural gas main in Cromwell.

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By Matt Pilon

A narrow spread between the prices of natural gas and oil continues to suppress the number of customers natural gas utilities in Connecticut are adding each year.

Eversource and Avangrid converted 9,939 Connecticut customers to natural gas last year, which was the second year in a row their combined total fell below 10,000, according to the latest annual filings the utility operators submitted to the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority.

2019 was the sixth year of a natural gas expansion plan drafted by the Malloy administration in 2012, when oil prices were higher, making conversions to gas more financially attractive.

The plan, part of the state’s first ever Comprehensive Energy Strategy, called for 280,000 conversions by 2023, a multibillion-dollar investment.

But oil prices have been lower than expected since crashing in 2016, and it’s become almost certain that the gas utilities will not meet the targets. They’ve been revising annual targets downward for the past several years to reflect that reality.

From 2014 through 2019, the gas utilities converted a total of 81,611, according to the filings, which were submitted to PURA in mid-June. That’s 52% of the 156,633 conversions originally called for by the state’s plan.

Conversions in 2020 are expected to slip further against the targets. The filings project 9,300 total conversions this year, which would be just over 31% of the original goal for this year.