About
Founded in 1918, the American Gas Association (AGA) educates the public about the importance of natural gas, supports natural gas utilities in their efforts to make their operations safer, more efficient and more environmentally-friendly, and serves as a resource for local, state and federal policymakers when it comes to regulating the natural gas industry.
Nearly 187 million Americans and 5.8 million businesses use natural gas because it is affordable, reliable, safe and essential to improving our environment. The American Gas Association is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through smart innovation, new and modernized infrastructure, and advanced technologies that maintain reliable, resilient, and affordable energy service choices for consumers.
Affordable
- America’s abundance of natural gas resources and our extensive infrastructure base can satisfy current and future domestic energy demand while keeping prices affordable and stable for decades into the future.
- Households that use natural gas for heating, cooking and clothes drying save an average of $1,068 per year compared to homes using electricity for those applications.
- The low cost of natural gas has saved families a total of $147 billion over 10 years with businesses saving more than half a trillion dollars.
- More than 30,000 businesses sign up to use natural gas each year and more than 4.1 million jobs are connected to the natural gas industry.
Reliable
- A reliable and resilient energy system is essential to the operation of nearly every critical function and sector of the U.S. economy. Through natural disasters and extreme weather events, the utility industry’s underground delivery system provides reliable energy Americans can count on.
- Only 1 in 112 customers are expected to experience a planned or unplanned natural gas outage in any given year whereas electric distribution systems have an average of one outage per year per customer.
- On an energy equivalent basis, the gas system can provide 2-3 times the energy as that of the electric sector during peak demand periods in the winter months.
- The natural gas delivery system is 92% efficient from production to customer.
Safe
- Natural gas is delivered to customers through a 2.6-million-mile underground pipeline system. This includes approximately 2.3 million miles of local utility distribution pipelines and 300,000 miles of transmission pipelines that stretch across the country.
- America’s natural gas utilities invest $32 billion each year in enhancing the safety of natural gas distribution and transmission systems.
- AGA’S Peer Review Program is a voluntary safety and operational practices program that allows participating companies to be reviewed by their peers, share leading practices, and identify opportunities to better serve customers and communities.
- AGA’s Commitment to Cyber and Physical Security was developed and adopted to demonstrate dedication to ensuring that natural gas pipeline infrastructure remains resilient to growing and dynamic cyber and physical security threats.
Environment
- Climate change is a defining challenge across the globe, and natural gas, natural gas utilities, and the delivery infrastructure are essential to meeting our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals.
- Emissions from the natural gas distribution system have declined 69% since 1990 even as natural gas utility companies added more than 815,100 miles of pipelines to serve 22.3 million more customers over that period, increases of 56 percent and 41 percent, respectively.
- Pathways that utilize natural gas and the vast utility delivery infrastructure offer opportunities to incorporate renewable gases, provide optionality for stakeholders, help minimize customer impacts, maintain high reliability, improve overall energy system resilience, and accelerate emissions reductions.
- Carbon dioxide emissions from residencies using natural gas for space heating, water heating, cooking, and clothes drying are about 22% lower than those attributable to an all-electric home.
Innovation
- America’s natural gas utilities are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through smart innovation and are investing $125 million to advance low and zero-carbon technologies and reduce emissions.
- Natural gas utilities invest $4.3 million per day in energy efficiency programs to help customers install tighter-fitting windows and doors, upgrade insulation and purchase increasingly more efficient natural gas appliances. Residential emissions per customer have declined by 47% since 1971.
- The gas system’s ability to integrate high-value sources of energy such as renewable natural gas and hydrogen is a critical component of our nation’s ability to reach ambitious greenhouse gas reductions goals.
- There are nearly 300 RNG facilities across the US and Canada in operation today with a further 450 under construction or planned.
Helpful Resources