Philip DeCicco is general counsel for National Grid New York.
A recent opinion piece in Utility Dive inaccurately argues that utilities are driving higher customer bills by using "conflicting" gas and electric forecasts to justify infrastructure investments.
While the premise may sound alarming, the central claim rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of what utility forecasts measure, who they are designed to serve and how utilities are required to plan to ensure reliable service for millions of customers of the electric and gas networks.
The article purports that National Grid's forecasts in the company’s Upstate New York territory demonstrate a costly misalignment, drawing unsubstantiated conclusions based on a perceived gap between projected heat pump adoption in electric and gas planning.
It does not.
In reality, the authors have compared two different forecasts, designed for two different purposes, serving two different customer populations, and then treated the resulting differences as evidence of a problem.
That is not how utility planning works and reflects a significant misunderstanding of planning and the operational realities of serving more than 4.2 million customers across New York State.
Different customer bases, not different assumptions
The article's headline claim centers on a roughly 30,000-unit difference between heat pump adoption reflected in National Grid subsidiary Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.’s electric and gas planning.
Let’s break it down with actual data and facts: NMPC's electric business serves 1.7 million customers — nearly three times as many customers as its gas business, which serves approximately 600,000.
The basic math alone makes a direct comparison problematic. Comparing the total number of heat pumps reflected in electric planning to those reflected in gas planning is not an apples-to-apples exercise because the underlying customer populations are dramatically different. The comparison becomes even more misleading when one understands what the two forecasts are actually measuring.
The NMPC gas forecast intentionally captures only customers converting from natural gas to electric heating because those are the only customers relevant to gas-system planning.
The electric forecast, by contrast, captures all heat pump additions regardless of the fuel being displaced.
That distinction matters because approximately 60% of heat-pump conversions in NMPC territory involve customers switching from delivered fuels such as oil or propane, not from natural gas. Those installations affect electric demand and therefore belong in electric planning. They do not represent customers leaving the gas system and therefore are not counted in gas planning.
What the article presents as evidence of forecast inconsistency is, in reality, a reflection of different, accurate planning objectives.
Forecasting is risk management, not fortune telling
Utility planning is not an exercise in predicting the future with certainty. It is an exercise in ensuring safe and reliable service and managing risk.
Electric utilities have an obligation to ensure that infrastructure is available when customers need it. With New York’s all-of-the-above energy strategy, if heat pump adoption accelerates beyond expectations, utilities cannot simply build substations, feeders and transmission infrastructure overnight. Major investments require years of planning, permitting, regulatory review and construction.
For that reason, electric planners must consider scenarios where electrification adoption exceeds current expectations. Underestimating electric demand will shrink already thin reliability margins and cause project delays that lead to higher costs for customers.
The same principle applies to gas planning, but in reverse.
Gas utilities are required to demonstrate that they can reliably serve firm customers on a peak "design day" — the coldest day expected. As long as customers remain connected to the gas system, utilities must plan to serve them.
The article assumes that customers who install heat pumps immediately stop relying on natural gas. Despite the author’s assertions, reality demonstrates otherwise.
Only about 5% of NMPC customers who install heat pumps fully disconnect from the gas system. The vast majority retain their gas connection for other end uses, including water heating, cooking and clothes drying. Others maintain dual-fuel systems and continue using gas during the coldest periods of the year.
Yet the article's analysis implies that roughly half of customers adopting heat pumps would leave the gas system entirely. That assumption is approximately ten times higher than what National Grid is actually observing from our customers.
Planning the gas system based on such an assumption would be imprudent. Reliable utility planning requires grounding forecasts in actual customer behavior, not theoretical projections that diverge significantly from observed data.
New York's energy transition requires smart regional planning
The article also overlooks an important reality of operating a statewide energy system: Different regions of New York are moving through the energy transition differently.
National Grid serves diverse territories from Buffalo to Albany and Brooklyn to Montauk, with different climates, housing stocks, energy usage patterns, infrastructure constraints and customer preferences.
NMPC in Upstate New York is fundamentally different from National Grid's downstate businesses serving New York City and Long Island. Heat pump adoption rates, economics, building characteristics and customer behavior vary significantly across those regions.
Sound utility planning accounts for these regional differences rather than applying uniform assumptions across diverse service territories. A one-size-fits-all approach would undermine the accuracy and reliability of our forecasts.
Independent reviews already examined these forecasts
The article also creates the impression that these forecasting approaches have escaped serious scrutiny. In fact, National Grid's forecasting methodologies have undergone extensive review.
The New York Public Service Commission's management audit specifically identified the company’s strong performance in both electric and gas load forecasting, highlighting significant enhancements, governance improvements, quality assurance controls and forecasting capabilities.
The conclusion is clear: These forecasts have not been developed in isolation. They have been scrutinized and approved through robust regulatory proceedings and independent evaluation.
Affordability depends on getting the facts right
We share the authors' concern for customer affordability, which is precisely why these distinctions matter.
Integrated gas and electric planning are important, and National Grid is already advancing that work through coordinated planning efforts and non-pipeline alternative strategies. But productive policy discussions must begin with an accurate understanding of what individual forecasts are designed to measure.
The real challenge is not that utilities are planning for multiple futures. The real challenge is navigating an energy transition marked by uncertainty while continuing to provide safe, reliable and affordable service.
That requires rigorous analysis, prudent planning and a clear-eyed understanding of customer behavior, not headlines derived from misleading comparisons.
And New Yorkers – and all utility customers – deserve a debate grounded in facts, not misleading assumptions.
