The EIA recently put out a short-term energy outlook, which analyzed how the upcoming winter will look for all areas of the energy industry. Because of just how severe this summer was, perhaps it’s pressing to look ahead and contrast with what looks to be a completely manageable winter for the U.S. and by extension, Texas.
This is extrapolated from the EIA short-term winter fuels outlook as well. But as is discussed, a forecasted “milder weather” will mean less fuel usage to heat houses. Depending on region, a Texas home heated by natural gas will be more expensive due to natural gas markets, as is discussed in the same report:
“In contrast to the national average, EIA forecasts that expenditures will increase for homes that heat with natural gas in the Midwest and South as a result of higher retail natural gas prices.”
But on average, everything is expected to drop in the home-heating department, meaning that the majority of customers will see a drop in their bill by 1%.
The overall outlook also extends into the beginnings of 2020, so the data looks beyond the winter on a more surface level basis. We will briefly explore electricity, coal, renewables, emissions, and natural gas when considering the EIA’s projections.
Electricity, Coal, and Natural Gas: Greatest Hits of the Energy Outlook
Perhaps a positive effect of having warm overall temperatures this year is that we can expect a milder winter. This means less expensive energy bills due to decreased furnace usage and winter fuels in Texas and other southwestern states mainly, as discussed above.
Looking past the winter and into 2020, the amount of electricity generated by natural gas plants will rise. This will most likely be necessitated by the continual decrease of coal plants. The EIA says coal will continue to fall by another 11% in 2020.
Additionally, natural gas saw increased consumption this year, but because surplus storage, the prices stayed low in the last half of the year. The EIA forecasts natural gas production to stay relatively flat and prices to actually decrease through the early 2020 year because of the oversupply at the Henry Hub. This is all despite an increasing demand for natural gas to generate electricity across the country.
Renewables and Emissions
Electricity derived from wind energy will increase from 10% to 12% in 2020, owing to the continual rise in renewable energy initiatives (especially in Texas). As the outlook states, “Texas accounts for 19% of the U.S. non-hydropower renewables generation in 2019 and 22% in 2020.”
As coal slowly dies out, CO2 levels are going to keep falling. By this time next year, CO2 levels will have dropped 4.1% in comparison to 2018 levels. A lot of this has to do with what they project to be a year that sees less household energy consumption overall.