{"id":184506,"date":"2026-04-03T14:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T14:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/184506\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T14:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T14:42:09","slug":"national-grid-revamping-key-staten-island-natural-gas-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/184506\/","title":{"rendered":"National Grid revamping key Staten Island natural gas site"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the heels of a winter that broke natural gas demand records, National Grid New York is nearing completion on replacing key Staten Island infrastructure that helps supply close to 100,000 customers and doing other work across the grid.<\/p>\n

Brooklyn-based National Grid New York told amNewYork about the two-phase replacement of the Grasmere Gate Station, a roughly 50-year-old piece of natural gas infrastructure on Staten Island, as the company upgrades and modernizes energy infrastructure.<\/p>\n

National Grid New York delivers natural gas to 1.3 million customers in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island as well as 600,000 in Nassau and Suffolk counties, and serves 2.3 million gas and electric customers in upstate New York, totaling 4.2 million customers statewide. Consolidated Edison supplies gas to customers in Manhattan and the Bronx.<\/p>\n

Since natural gas lines are buried and out of sight, most of the infrastructure is invisible, but National Grid New York\u2019s Grasmere station, located at the back of a Staten Island parking lot, gave a rare glimpse of workers peeling away the pavement to show technology, beyond pipes, that helps supply New York City with natural gas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink of it as a highway. We need to get this gas at higher pressures,\u201d said Paul Cama, lead project manager for National Grid\u2019s complex gas construction. \u201cAnd we need to regulate that pressure down to a gas pressure that can be delivered to customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

This equipment, the largest such station on Staten Island, was built in 1975 and today serves about 80,000 customers, ranging from residential to commercial and industrial.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a full soup to nuts rebuild,\u201d Cama added. \u201cWe replace basically every piece of mechanical equipment and components within the station. It improves our safety systems, and strengthens the physical structure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The work was done before, during and after a particularly cold winter in New York City, including record natural gas demand on February 7, 2026 and several other days that broke natural gas demand records.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese brutally cold temperatures continue to underscore the critical role natural gas plays in keeping the lights and heat on for millions of homes and businesses in New York,\u201d National Grid New York President Sally Librera said in a written statement regarding natural gas, which also provides fuel for electricity generators.<\/p>\n

\"National<\/a>National Grid is doing work on Staten Island infrastructure.Photo courtesy of National Grid<\/p>\n

National Grid this month said it won an Edison Electric Institute Emergency Response Award for its efforts after extreme weather and other natural events, based on reactions to bad weather.<\/p>\n

EEI CEO Drew Maloney said \u201ckeeping the lights on and restoring power quickly after severe weather\u201d requires \u201cextraordinary preparation and the dedication of highly skilled workforces.\u201d<\/p>\n

The award cited response following\u2019 Halloween 2025 winds, Thanksgiving day wind and ice, wind and snow on Dec. 18, and winter storm Ezra in late December.\n<\/p>\n

National Grid, however, said preparation includes crew response as well as infrastructure upgrades in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island to be ready for rising demand.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur investments in Staten Island are as substantial as what we\u2019re doing in other areas of our service territory,\u201d National Grid New York spokesman Alexander Starr added. \u201cThe level of expertise and attention are the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

While natural gas\u2019s peak season is during the cold months, it\u2019s a key part of the city\u2019s energy picture all year long.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cNatural gas consumption peaks during the winter months, primarily due to heating demands,\u201d Starr said. \u201cHowever, its usage extends throughout the year and isn\u2019t limited to residential settings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starr said that natural gas also plays a crucial role in providing hot water and fueling cooking appliances.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThis consistent demand is even more pronounced within commercial environments, where natural gas supports a wide range of daily operations,\u201d Starr said. \u201cWith its versatility and reliability, natural gas remains an essential resource across both residential and commercial sectors, regardless of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Work on Grasmere continued throughout a particularly cold New York City winter, with phase one done from March to October 2025, followed by phase two, which started in November and is expected to be completed this June.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt couldn\u2019t be done in one year,\u201d Cama said. \u201cIt ties back to the size and complexity of this project. We had to sequence construction activities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"National<\/a>National Grid is doing work on Staten Island infrastructure.Photo courtesy of National Grid<\/p>\n

The technology, Cama said, modernizes a unit in ways designed to provide long-term benefits. \u201cWhen you do these upgrades, technology improves,\u201d Cama continued. \u201cThe pressure regulation equipment, our registers, our readings. It\u2019s more efficient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starr said this was part of a continuing investment in safe, reliable energy delivery to homes, schools, businesses and nonprofits. \u201cIt\u2019s a part of an umbrella approach of maintaining and upgrading our system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

National Grid sought to inform the neighborhood of work done on weekdays. \u201cWe were really proactive in terms of reaching out to immediate stakeholders,\u201d Cama said. \u201cOur job site was pushed further back into the parking lot, so it didn\u2019t have an immediate impact on customers.\u201d<\/p>\n

They took advantage of the summer, when gas demand and usage are lower, taking the station out of service in April so no gas flowed through it. But they also needed to bring it back into service during colder weather.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a strict deadline,\u201d Cama said. \u201cBefore it gets cold, in October, to get this station up and running, to flow and regulate gas to support higher demand usage in the winter.\u201d<\/p>\n

They worked weekdays, replacing and rebuilding the gate station now in its final phase before final commissioning and connection to the grid. \u201cSummer is on its way,\u201d Cama added. \u201cWith warmer weather, the demand is lower. We\u2019re prepping to take this regulator station out of service, to do the final tie-ins where we connect what we just built to our gas system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starr said it\u2019s important to continue investing in infrastructure to meet current demand and be prepared for growing demand. \u201cUpgrades need to take place to keep pace and be ahead of the curb when it comes to energy demand for today and the future,\u201d Starr said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the heels of a winter that broke natural gas demand records, National Grid New York is nearing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184507,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4760,5588,9,24,55,54,56,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-184506","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-national-grid","9":"tag-natural-gas","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-city-news","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-staten-island"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184506\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}