In April 2019, utility North Shore Gas received approval from local municipalities to move forward with the most ambitious upgrade ever of its Grayslake gate interconnect station. The station handles a large majority of the natural gas that heats and powers the utility’s northeastern Illinois service area and connects the North Shore Gas system with that of supplier Kinder Morgan.
Four years of planning went into the $27-million project that had to be built and commissioned between late April and October 2020 before demand for natural gas rose as the weather got colder. Then the pandemic hit in March and a point-of-no-return date on whether to begin the project or put it off until stakeholders knew more about COVID-19 loomed by April 15.