What You Need to Know About Natural Gas Supply Emergencies
While rare, unlikely events such as a major disruption may affect the supply of natural gas available to National Grid. If that happens, we may need to temporarily suspend service to some large businesses to ensure the safety of our customers that rely on natural gas for home heating and to keep critical facilities such as hospitals, nursing homes and public shelters up and running.
The FAQ’s below describe how National Grid responds to such events and the steps customers should take before, during and after a natural gas supply emergency.
Unplanned pipeline disruptions, problems with the suppliers we purchase gas from and other unforeseen events, such as sustained, extremely cold temperatures, can lead to a temporary gas supply shortfall.
When we identify that a supply shortage is likely, we will alert large businesses that may have their service disrupted. If we believe more conservation is needed, we will make a public appeal to reduce gas usage. Only if these steps fail, will we begin curtailing service to other businesses.
In the event of a possible curtailment, some commercial customers who have registered for notifications should expect a communication via a combination of available channels provided by you/the customer: phone call, text, and email to explain the situation and ask for cooperation. Additional information may also be available on our website and our social media channels.
Our guiding principle is that the welfare and safety of our customers is paramount. To continue providing natural gas for home heating, hospitals and other critical care facilities, we first stop gas delivery to businesses that, in exchange for a discounted rate, agree to switch to an alternate fuel. In very rare cases, however, this action may not be enough. At that point, we may ask our larger customers to help reduce the strain on our system by curtailing your gas use.
If you are a residential customer, the most important thing you can do is to reduce your natural gas usage. Keep your thermostat at 65 degrees when you are home and set it to 60 degrees when you are not. If you are a business class customer, consider adjusting start-up and power-down times for your systems to reduce energy usage during peak times.
National Grid has developed a notification system that will provide alerts of a possible emergency for our larger natural gas customers. Businesses that have updated their emergency contact information will receive a text, phone and/or e-mail with information about the emergency.
Not at this time. However, our goal is to do everything we can to keep the gas flowing for home heating and critical facilities, so it is very unlikely we would need to suspend service for our residential and small business customers.
National Grid offers a variety of programs and incentives for both businesses and homeowners.
New York Customers
- Residential customers: ngrid.com/save
- Commercial customers: ngrid.com/dnybiz
New England Customers
- Commercial customers: ngrid.com/business