SALEM, Oregon — The council that helps ensure Oregon and Washington have affordable electricity now expects a glut of natural gas supplies to last for years, potentially reducing costs for residential and business customers but also creating challenges for developers of alternative energy.
Staff at the Northwest Power and Conservation Council last week suggested changes to its fuel price forecasts, citing a “fundamental shift” in expectations. They now see natural gas prices falling as new technologies help tap the resource from deep within shale formations such as those in Pennsylvania or Wyoming.
The council hasn’t formally adopted the proposed changes, but if they’re right, natural gas customers would benefit directly, much as they currently are from falling prices.
For instance, Intermountain Gas Co., with 315,000 customers in southern Idaho, on Thursday said it would cut its prices starting in October by $14.4 million.
But customers of electricity utilities that produce a healthy share of their power from natural gas-fired plants, like Idaho Power Co.’s 300-megawatt Langley Gulch facility to be completed next year, could also see long-term relief.
“The wholesale prices for electricity should be impacted by this lower natural gas price,” Massoud Jourabchi, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s manager of economic analysis, told The Associated Press on Thursday. “That, in turn, will have an impact on customer retail rates. How much, it really depends on the particulars of the utility.”
What has changed to make the four-state power council increasingly bullish on natural gas supplies? Companies are getting better at sucking natural gas from deep beneath the earth’s surface, doing it more cheaply than ever before.
