New England made 59% more wind power than a year before. Is that the biggest number in the story?
Compare April through July 2026 with the same months of 2025. New England's electricity from wind grew by a big percent, and its electricity from natural gas shrank by a small percent. Now count the actual amounts, and the picture flips. Both views are true.
Compared with the same months of 2025, New England's electricity from natural gas went down 6%. That was a drop of 1.1 billion kilowatthours (BkWh). A kilowatthour is the unit on an electric bill.
Basis: EIA, “New England natural gas prices have been trading near record discounts to Henry Hub” (September 9, 2026), citing EIA's Hourly Electricity Grid Monitor, April–July 2026 vs. the same period of 2025.
Over the same months, wind power went up 59%, an increase of 0.7 BkWh. Utility-scale (power-plant-size) solar went up 29%, an increase of 0.2 BkWh.
Basis: Same EIA article.
Look closely at these three. The biggest percent change belongs to wind (59%). The biggest change in amount belongs to gas (1.1 BkWh). Wind started out much smaller, so a smaller amount made a bigger percent. That is not a trick. A percent change always compares the change to where you started.
Basis: Same EIA article: gas −1.1 BkWh (6%), wind +0.7 BkWh (59%), utility-scale solar +0.2 BkWh (29%).
Gas use for everything, not only electricity, was down too. New England's total natural gas consumption from April through July 2026 was 5% lower than in the same months of 2025.
Basis: Same EIA article, citing S&P Global Energy data.
Meanwhile, more gas came in from next door. The net flow of gas from Canada into New England (gas coming in minus gas going out) averaged a record 0.4 billion cubic feet per day from April through July, more than 2.5 times the same months of 2025.
Basis: Same EIA article, citing S&P Global Energy data (monthly net flows from Canada into New England).
The seasons matter too. In winter, more gas is needed to heat homes, and the price at Algonquin Citygate, a major New England trading hub, has typically run above the national benchmark, Henry Hub. In spring and summer, heating demand falls, solar power rises, and Algonquin has often run below it. From April through July 2026, it averaged 43 cents per million Btu below Henry Hub. That is the second-biggest April-to-July discount in records going back to 1999.
Basis: Same EIA article (Algonquin Citygate vs. Henry Hub, Natural Gas Intelligence data back to 1999).
Did the increase in wind generation cause the drop in gas power? EIA reports the two changes side by side, “during the same period,” but does not say one caused the other. Less gas use, more wind and solar, and more Canadian gas all happened in the same months. Working out which caused what is a separate question.
※ A hypothesis is an idea that isn't proven yet.
📊 Sources for the rankings mentioned in this note (links to the original data and retrieval dates) are on each quiz page below.