Brattle Report Offers a Framework for Urban Gas Decarbonization Planning
As the Illinois Commerce Commission considers the future of gas, Brattle has worked with Peoples Gas Light and Coke Company and North Shore Gas to examine how gas utilities could support Illinois’s decarbonization goals. The work assesses decarbonization technologies, their costs and performance, their fit within the utilities’ service territories, and potential business models for utility involvement.
In Economical Urban Decarbonization: Cost and Feasibility of Technologies Available to Gas Companies, Brattle experts share the planning tools and analysis developed through that work. The report examines three 25-year scenarios: a business-as-usual case without decarbonization goals; full decarbonization through electrification; and a hybrid economic decarbonization scenario that limits customer conversions when their costs exceed the associated social cost of carbon. It also evaluates whether alternatives to gas pipeline repairs or expansion could create opportunities to reduce emissions.
Planning over this time horizon requires a detailed understanding of customers, buildings, and gas system operations, as well as the effects of each approach on customer affordability, administrative complexity, the practical pace of adoption, and the reliability of both gas and electric service.
Although the analysis was developed in the context of Chicago-area utilities, the questions and planning approach are relevant to other urban communities weighing the future of gas.
The full report is available below.
