National Grid, Enbridge faulted for January’s natural gas emergency

WARWICK – State and federal regulators on Wednesday blamed utility giants National Grid Rhode Island and Enbridge Inc. for equipment failures that caused January’s weeklong natural gas outage that led to a state of emergency and an evacuation on Aquidneck Island.

The R.I. Division of Public Utilities and Carriers, in coordination with the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, issued a 74-page report on the results of their investigation into the outage, citing three factors:

  • Demand for natural gas was in excess of contractual limits from many customers that receive gas via Enbridge’s Algonquin interstate pipeline on the morning of Jan. 21, driven by low temperatures.
  • The “uninterruptible” power system failed at National Grid’s liquid natural gas storage and vaporization facility at Fields Point in Providence, shutting down the vaporizers and causing a sudden and large increase in demand for gas from the Algonquin pipeline into the Providence area – a demand that would otherwise have been met by vaporized liquid natural gas from the Fields Point facility.
  • A valve malfunctioned along the Algonquin pipeline at a meter station in Weymouth, Mass., operated by Enbridge. The malfunction stemmed from a programming error that caused the valve to repeatedly open and close, restricting the flow of gas when the system operators tried to inject more gas into the pipeline.

“Had Algonquin programmed its valve in Weymouth correctly, modeling shows that the inlet pressures at Portsmouth [on Aquidneck Island] would have been sustained at levels that would not have necessitated” the shutdown, the report stated.

“As the provider of interstate gas transportation, Algonquin [Enbridge] had a duty to program its meters and valves correctly to assure safe and reliable service to its customers. But, in this case, it failed to do so,” it added.

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“Similarly, the National Grid LNG shutdown of its [liquid natural gas] vaporization facility, due to a failed uninterruptible power supply that caused the plant’s vaporizers to fail, contributed to the low-pressure condition,” the report stated.

“According to the [Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration], National Grid LNG experienced an emergency shutdown in November 2018 due to a failed uninterruptible power supply, which it did not adequately investigate or resolve,” the report continued.

“Had National Grid LNG taken steps to address the faulty uninterruptible power supply, modeling shows that the inlet pressures at Portsmouth would have been sustained at levels that would not have necessitated” the shutdown, it added.

At about 6:50 p.m. on Jan. 21, National Grid, also known as The Narragansett Electric Company Inc., shut down a significant portion of its natural gas distribution system in Newport and Middletown on Aquidneck Island, due to the low pressure in the system, resulting in an outage to 7,455 customers. The impact of the seven-day outage led Gov. Gina M. Raimondo to declare a state of emergency in Newport County.

“Regardless of the cause of the low-pressure condition,” the report stated, “the ability of Narragansett Electric [National Grid] to respond to failures at the Weymouth meter station and the Providence LNG facility once they had occurred was significantly limited by its management of the gas distribution system over the previous several years.”

The company, through its decisions, created preconditions that significantly contributed to the outage, the report stated:

  • Narragansett Electric [National Grid] had deactivated its permanent liquid natural gas storage and vaporization facility in Newport in 2010. As demand on the island grew year by year, the company failed to forecast the need to redeploy liquid natural gas to address load growth. Similarly, the company did not deploy temporary liquid natural gas vaporization facilities at Portsmouth during the winter of 2018-19. The company made these decisions based on erroneous forecasting assumptions.
  • The company did not do contingency planning on its distribution system, despite having experienced a similar low-pressure condition on March 7, 2014.

The report also detailed other system vulnerabilities and made numerous recommendations for improvements.

The Division of Public Utilities and Carriers cited National Grid for a rule violation, alleging the company failed to notify the division of the emergency shutdown of its Fields Point liquid natural gas plant on Jan. 21.

The division said it will issue a notice of probable violation and fine the company $39,000.

“Following Jan. 21, no one at Narragansett Electric [National Grid] informed the division about the LNG facility shutdown in Providence,” the report stated. “During that time, company personnel attributed the low-pressure condition solely to the Algonquin valve malfunction that occurred in Weymouth.”

As the state began inquiries in the weeks following the event, according to the report, the company continued not to report the Jan. 21 shutdown at Fields Point.

Meanwhile, National Grid has estimated it incurred costs totaling $25.1 million from the outage. If the company seeks to recover those costs through a special filing with the state Public Utilities Commission, the division said it believes the company’s ratepayers should not bear those costs.

“Those costs should be borne by one or more of the gas service providers,” the report stated.

In addition, the report included some “positive observations” regarding National Grid’s actions during the emergency, saying that once the company recognized the gravity of the situation, it made the correct decision to curtail gas service for the entire low-pressure system to protect public safety.

The company also should be commended, it added, for preserving the high-pressure systems on Aquidneck Island, which helped “avoid what could have been a major catastrophe had the high-pressure systems serving critical facilities on that extremely cold day been lost.”

In a statement Wednesday, National Grid cited Enbridge’s role in the gas outage and commended its own response to the emergency.

“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,” National Grid said. “While we will carefully review these reports over the coming days, the findings confirm our concerns regarding operations of the Algonquin [Enbridge] transmission system. Had the transmission system performed as expected, the outage would not have occurred.”

National Grid said it has made improvements since the emergency.

“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,” the company said.

However, National Grid did not mention its Fields Point facility or the problems there cited in the state’s report.

Regarding investigators, the company said it is “appreciative of their diligence in examining all aspects of the incident, including the areas where we excelled and where we could improve.

“In fact,” the company added, “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.”

Enbridge responded to the report Thursday, noting National Grid’s role in the outage and mentioning the meter station malfunction in Weymouth, but without acknowledging blame for the malfunction.

“Unusually high demand for natural gas in the region due to extremely cold weather, combined with the unexpected loss of natural gas supply from a National Grid LNG facility, and an equipment malfunction at a meter station on another part of the Algonquin pipeline system, were among the contributing factors leading to the low-pressure situation,” Enbridge said in a statement.

“The regulators’ reports are clear in that issues involving National Grid’s facilities, and the rate at which customers took natural gas from Algonquin above their scheduled maximum hourly limit, played a significant role in the events which led to the interruption in gas service,” Enbridge said.

“We continue to communicate with the involved parties to ensure there is an understanding of what caused the low-pressure event, and prevent a recurrence in the future,” Enbridge added. “This event underscores the importance of a resilient natural gas infrastructure system to ensure the region’s energy needs are met – especially during peak winter heating.”

During a Jan. 22 news conference on the emergency with Gov. Raimondo, National Grid Rhode Island President Tim Horan collapsed. He was treated and released that night from Rhode Island Hospital.

Terry Sobolewski, who stepped in for Horan during the crisis, was named in March as Horan’s permanent replacement. Horan, who led the company for eight years, was tapped for a new National Grid position focusing on “safety, health, and the environment,” the company said at the time.

Meanwhile, National Grid started construction last spring on a $180 million natural gas liquefaction facility at Fields Point that’s expected to start operating in 2021, after receiving federal approval for the project last year. Federal officials concluded the project is needed, despite the protests of environmental groups and Providence residents, including Mayor Jorge O. Elorza, who opposed it.

Wednesday, state Sen. Dawn Euer, D-Newport, Jamestown, said utilities such as National Grid should not pass the cost of January’s outage onto its 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,” Euer said in a statement.

“I think it’s also important that this outage is not used to push for additional interstate pipelines,” Euer said. “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,” she added. “Improving this system is clearly necessary given the Aquidneck Island outage, which came on the heels of the Merrimack Valley gas explosion” in Massachusetts.

Euer said the incident raises 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?”

The Conservation Law Foundation in Providence also issued a statement in response to the report, saying customers should not have to pay for the outage.

“Customers should absolutely not be straddled with higher bills because of the mistake of utilities,” said Amy Moses, the foundation’s vice president and director in Rhode Island.

“But the report’s suggestion of reducing demand for gas simply doesn’t go far enough,” Moses said. “We need to get off dirty fracked gas and focus on clean renewables, not expand infrastructure that only harms our air and destroys our climate.”

Scott Blake is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Blake@PBN.com