On December 12, 2007, the reference-case projections from Annual Energy Outlook 2008 (AEO 2008) were posted on the Energy Information Administration's (EIA) web site. We at LBNL have, in the past, compared the EIA's reference-case long-term natural gas price forecasts from the AEO series to contemporaneous natural gas prices that can be locked in through the forward market, with the goal of better understanding fuel price risk and the role that renewables can play in mitigating such risk. As such, we were curious to see how the latest AEO reference-case gas price forecast compares to the NYMEX natural gas futures strip. This brief memo presents our findings. Note that this memo pertains only to natural gas fuel price risk (i.e., the risk that natural gas prices might differ over the life of a gas-fired generation asset from what was expected when the decision to build the gas-fired unit was made). We do not take into consideration any of the other distinct attributes of gas-fired and renewable generation, such as dispatchability (or lack thereof) or environmental externalities. A comprehensive comparison of different resource types--which is well beyond the scope of this memo--would need to account for differences in all such attributes, including fuel price risk.
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