ILLINOIS – An extremely cold start to 2025 has led to a spike in demand for natural gas, a product used by many homeowners to power furnaces during winter months.
Ameren Illinois utilizes underground storage fields, including one in Freeburg, to meet demand spikes when the weather turns cold.
“We can inject gas into the ground during the summer when demand is low and prices are cheap,” Senior Director of Gas Technical Services for Ameren Illinois Brad Kloeppel said. “We store it there and then pull it back out of the ground during the wintertime when, typically, prices are going to be higher.”
The company has 12 storage fields across the state, including a location in Freeburg that helps provide service to Metro East customers.
Kloeppel said the market price of natural gas spiked Monday due to high demand. He said by using natural gas in storage, the company was able to deliver gas purchased at a lower price to customers.
“In that one day, not just Freeburg but all 12 of our storage fields, we provided savings of almost $7 million to our customers,” Kloeppel said.
The state’s geological characteristics, which include sandstone, make the underground storage sites feasible.
“We are able to inject gas into the sandstone and there’s another rock formation that’s impermeable so that gas stays trapped in this formation until we pull it out,” said Kloeppel.
Mike Kershaw is the superintendent of gas storage for Ameren Illinois. He was at the underground storage field in Freeburg, where the noise from a compressor reflected the demand for natural gas that was flowing through the pipeline.
Natural gas usage on Tuesday is expected to rank as one of the top 20 usage dates during the past 20 years, according to Ameren Illinois.
“You can see the pressure drop throughout the natural gas system,” said Kershaw. “The regulator stations and storage fields are picking up that flow, making sure the pressure stays where it is and customers have gas at their homes.”
Kloeppel said the underground site at Freeburg has enough capacity to store an amount of natural gas that could fill the equivalent of 80 Busch Stadiums.