Weather Conditions An Integral Part Of Southeast Texas LDC’s Planning

No matter where a natural gas company is located, weather undoubtedly affects its energy demand and pricing year-round. Further still, varying weather conditions can have a measurable impact on a gas company’s daily operations, ranging from staffing and scheduling to the protection of company assets. Although these issues are universal for utility providers, for smaller or rural utilities these situations can often times be even more difficult as they face tighter financial or staffing resources.

To plan for the number of situations that can be caused by severe weather, many utility companies rely on outside weather providers to supply more precise information needed to operate more efficiently without wasting necessary resources. In fact, it is rare to find any utility company with the resources to have a trained meteorologist as a part of its internal staff. Instead, utilities are finding it more cost-effective to invest in an industry-specialized weather provider to supply the necessary information. That specialized information can then be monitored by an internal staff to make decisions on potential demand, staffing, budgeting and asset protection.

Most advanced weather providers are subscription-based services that can supply utilities with more comprehensive information than the average daily or long-term forecast. Ranging in services and cost, depending on the depth of the information, advanced weather providers can offer a variety of features including enhanced radar capabilities and “real-time” weather conditions for a specific service area.

Unlike long-term or free daily forecasts, advanced weather services provide utility companies frequent updates on current or developing conditions that are likely to affect a utility’s ability to provide service to its customers. Some weather services also offer consultations with a live meteorologist who has insight into the energy industry to provide tailored information.

Bay City Gas – Poised And Ready For Growth

Bay City Gas is a natural gas company that serves a small town in rural southeastern Texas. Located approximately 90 miles south of Houston and only 20 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, Bay City Gas relies heavily on its weather provider to plan for and address operations issues on a daily basis. Relatively small in size, Bay City Gas has 15 full-time employees and serves approximately 4,200 customers – the vast majority being residential.

Being a smaller city, Bay City Gas has not seen much growth during the past two decades. Although there has been little need for the expansion of natural gas lines in the past 20 years, the city is bracing for what could be a large expansion in the next five to 10 years. The local nuclear power plant is planning to build two expansions to its current operations which will create hundreds of well-paying jobs.

To prepare for the potential growth, Bay City has recently made moves to create new housing developments and has welcomed commercial businesses to town such as a new Wal-Mart and a few popular chain restaurants. These new developments have helped spur additional demand and construction of natural gas pipelines on behalf of Bay City Gas.