California Energy Commission Tactical Natural Gas Decommissioning

The State of California has long been a trailblazer in environmental protections. Since the energy crisis of the 1970s and 1980s, California has always been among the first (if not the first) in the United States to enact the most stringent and forward-looking energy objectives focused on efficiency, which doubled to help reduce environmental pollution from local fossil fuel production and consumption. The fact that its 3 trillion-dollar economy can be jeopardized by climate disasters, which is exacerbated by gargantuan consumption of fossil fuels by its transportation sector, puts into context why California is so keen to decarbonize its energy sector.

Likewise, California has set an ambitious goal in 2017 to double the energy efficiency savings of energy end uses including natural gas by 2030 (SB 350), which was then one-upped in 2018 with SB 100 to completely decarbonize the state’s electricity grid by 2045. As the most populous state in the country, California is among the states that consume the most energy, and its energy system is still largely dependent on fossil fuels despite the state’s vanguard status in renewables adoption. Although California has played a large role in driving the adoption of renewable energy in the United States, as well as its advances and facilitation of technological and economic viabilities, the state knows that its economic, energy, and climate security hinges on continued innovation.

In 2018, California Energy Commission had commissioned a study to understand the available pathways that help achieve its decarbonization objectives. That study was completed in 2019 with the conclusion that the electrification of buildings is likely to be a cheaper decarbonization strategy for California. Currently, much of California’s building energy end uses require natural gas infrastructure particularly from existing residential and commercial demand for cooking and heating, which require legacy infrastructure to stay in operation. While the electrification technologies such as induction ranges and heat pumps are available to replace natural gas appliances and equipment, they are extremely costly to purchase and to retrofit in existing building systems. The reality is that most people don’t have the disposable income to make the switch from natural gas to electric technologies.

In equitably achieving the State of California’s decarbonization objectives through building electrification, better understanding the natural gas infrastructure decommissioning processes is necessary. A large component of these processes involve not only the costs associated with removal of entrenched infrastructure, but also the selection of sites to prune the infrastructure, understanding and addressing the local residents’ concerns, and developing localized strategies tailored to each locale. Current literature surrounding building electrification provide useful insight to help recognize and formulate applicable indicators and variables in decommissioning natural gas infrastructure, such as economic and financial ramifications, regional and regulatory processes and outcomes, and technical viabilities of energy technologies and decarbonization pathways. However, the socio-cultural and psycho-behavioral facets that help connect the dots between the general public’s perception to the existing research regarding fuel sources and adoption of available technologies remain largely underexplored.