The Natural Gas System is Inherently Resilient

by Smith Warner Blogger

The gas system is structurally and empirically resilient, which was graphically demonstrated in Oregon’s February silver storm 2021, showing that while whilst tens of thousands of homes lost electricity, homes with gas continued to possess heat, cooking, and predicament .

The inherent resiliency of the gas system are often attributed to many factors:

Planning and preparation: Together with the physical properties of gas leads to few operational issues that threatened supply or capacity.

Underground Facilities: The extensive underground location of facilities protects them from weather impacts.

Line Pack: Transmission pipelines incidentally store gas at pressure (called “line pack”) which provides a buffer which will mitigate the consequences of abnormal operating conditions.

Network Reliability: the network configuration of the peak-shaving gas supply industry means , within the event of an outage, there's usually a “work-around” that permits continued service to LDCs and directly connected consumers.

Confined Impact: the physical configuration of gas pipelines limits the impact of a disruption; not vulnerable to “cascading events” like those on electric transmission systems.

The resiliency of the gas system was especially important during the Oregon silver storm . gas is that the workhorse fuel for homes in Oregon. for instance , NWGA member company NW Natural serves 2.5 million people in 140 communities while delivering more energy than the other utility in Oregon.

NW Natural also heats 74 percent of the residential square footage in its topographic point and provides 90 percent of the energy needs for residential space and water heat on the coldest winter days. It should even be mentioned that it does all of this at great savings to Oregon families: for the standard residence in Oregon, gas are often 50+ percent cheaper than electricity to heat both their home and water.

Ice Storm 2021 that electricity and gas aren't either-or, but both-and. The resiliency of the gas system and its broad distribution system (in addition to gas inherently being a low-carbon, low-emission clean fuel) make it an important , unavoidably necessary a part of a low-carbon energy future within the Pacific Northwest .