Coordination between the gas and electric industries is becoming increasingly crucial to meet demand and tackle extreme weather events, panelists participating in a WECC webinar said Sept. 3. 

Representatives from the Pacific Northwest Utilities Conference Committee (PNUCC), Williams, Arizona Public Service and Portland General Electric discussed coordination between the gas and electric sectors. 

The Northwest cold snap over the 2024 Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend prompted stakeholders to consider ways to improve coordination between the two sectors, said Crystal Ball, PNUCC’s executive director. (See NW Cold Snap Dispute Reflects Divisions over Western Markets.) 

The holiday weekend saw record-low temperatures along with historically high peak demand, prompting five different balancing authority areas (BAAs) to declare energy emergency alerts. 

Though the Pacific Northwest relies heavily on the Columbia River hydro system, the cold snap occurred during a low-water year, Ball noted. It also coincided with a fault that caused Washington’s Jackson Prairie natural gas storage facility to sharply reduce its sendout, prompting pipeline operator Williams to declare a force majeure that cut deliveries to interruptible customers, including some power generators.  

“We recognize that natural gas is the region’s second-largest power source behind hydro, and these two systems are very interdependent, and we will continue to depend on natural gas,” Ball said. 

To meet the mounting large-load challenges from data centers and the transportation sector, stakeholders must work together, not just on transmission and generation, but also focus on expanding the gas system, according to Ball. 

“We need policymakers, regulators, utilities to understand that situation,” she said. “There’s evidence that demand in our region is growing. But right now, this region is dangerously close to an energy supply shortage. And so I think that my advice to policymakers and other stakeholders is to learn about what these reliability risks are and to come together to think about how the region can maintain reliability.” 

For PGE, the January 2024 event meant there wasn’t any headroom in the utility’s systems, according to Aaron Rodehorst, manager of term trading at PGE. 

“We’re fully using our pipelines. We’re fully using our transmission systems,” Rodehorst said. “There’s a high degree of need for coordination.” 

Rodehorst said he works closely with balancing authority staff “to make sure they know everything I know that they can then also be coordinating with their peers.” 

“I’ve been building a contingency plan at Portland General Electric for four or five years now, and every year it gets better, and it gets better also when I start to share it more broadly and get to think about what pieces I’m not putting into that plan,” he noted. 

‘No More Wiggle Room’

Carolyn Ebner, commercial services lead at Williams, said, “our system is fully subscribed.” 

Williams owns the nearly 4,000-mile bi-directional Northwest Pipeline. The pipeline crosses Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado, according to the company’s website. 

“We have no more wiggle room,” Ebner said. “And Northwest Pipeline is not unique.” 

Ebner said the company will continue to have conversations with the electric sector, “both confidential and in these group platforms, [and] we’re going to continue to prepare options for growth and additional storage on our gas system.” 

Meanwhile, in Arizona, APS had a peak demand of about 8,500 MW in 2025, but the utility predicts peak demand will reach 13,000 MW by 2038, said Jason Hartzell, manager of fuels and contracts at APS. 

APS has had “positive” discussions with Arizona’s commissioners and has gained support for natural gas expansion through public forums facilitated through APS, Hartzell noted.  

To keep up with customer demand, APS has signed an agreement with Energy Transfer Partners to build a new pipeline from the Permian Basin to Arizona to support new gas-fired power plants, he added. 

“We would be one of the shippers of that pipeline,” Hartzell said. “So, we’re only one of the Arizona utilities that has seen this additional need for natural gas.”