National Grid's General Counsel Disputes New York Utility Forecast Criticism
National Grid New York says a widely circulated accusation about conflicting gas and electric forecasts misreads how utilities plan for more than four million customers.
National Grid New York's general counsel Philip DeCicco published a point-by-point rebuttal on Thursday (2026-09-03), calling it a "significant misunderstanding" of utility planning to claim the company uses conflicting gas and electric load forecasts to drive up customer bills across the state.7
The original accusation came from Brad Cebulko, a partner at Current Energy Group, and Sarah Steinberg, a managing director at Advanced Energy United, in a Utility Dive opinion piece on August 24 (2026-08-24). Their argument: utilities release separate, internally inconsistent demand projections — one to justify new gas infrastructure, another to justify electric grid investment — leaving customers effectively paying twice.6
DeCicco's rebuttal is specific. National Grid's Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation electric business serves 1.7 million customers, nearly three times the approximately 600,000 on its gas distribution system. Identical forecasts for two networks with that size difference would be the methodological problem, not separate ones.7
The heat-pump conversion argument is where the debate sharpens. Critics implied that rising electric heat-pump adoption should reduce gas demand and make gas infrastructure superfluous. But DeCicco said approximately 60% of heat-pump conversions in Niagara Mohawk territory involve customers switching from delivered fuels — oil or propane — rather than from piped natural gas. The gas customer count does not automatically fall when heat-pump uptake rises.7
The dispute has direct regulatory consequences. National Grid filed a proposal on Friday (2026-05-29) to freeze rates for its 1.9 million New York City and Long Island downstate gas customers until April 2028, according to E&E News. The company had previously secured a three-year rate freeze for upstate customers. Across New York State, the utility serves more than 4.2 million customers in total, and any regulatory ruling on how forecasts may be used in rate cases shapes what those customers pay.4,7
NYMEX Henry Hub front-month gas traded at $2.91/MMBtu on Thursday (2026-09-03), up 0.34% on the session. At that price, the supply picture does not help utilities make an easy economic case for new gas infrastructure: abundant gas is cheap for generators, but pipeline and distribution capital costs are not, and regulators are sharpening scrutiny of the demand projections that underpin those investments.3
The EIA's May 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook put Lower 48 marketed natural gas production at 117.2 Bcf/d in the first quarter of 2026, a 4% increase from Q1 2025. The agency forecast a 3% full-year production increase for 2026, driven by the Permian region, which it projected would hit 29.2 Bcf/d — up 6% from 2025. Haynesville output was seen growing 6% through 2026 and 8% in 2027.2
That production trajectory keeps Henry Hub subdued and makes a supply-shortage argument difficult for any utility seeking to justify new gas capacity on security-of-supply grounds alone. Storage data from the spring of 2026 reinforced the picture: inventories stood 141 Bcf, or about 8%, above year-ago levels after a weekly withdrawal of just 52 Bcf, well below the five-year average draw of 168 Bcf, with analysts attributing the surplus to mild weather that allowed unusual stockpiling during the shoulder season.1,5
For the dispute to reach any resolution, New York's Public Service Commission will have to weigh DeCicco's methodological defense against the critics' billing argument — most likely within the review of National Grid's pending rate freeze request for downstate customers. How the commission reads the forecast evidence in that proceeding may carry implications well beyond New York, given how many other state regulators are watching utilities manage gas and electric planning simultaneously under accelerating electrification mandates.4,7