New Energy Ventures

Guiding principles prioritize our areas of focus and investment

While we continue to focus on immediate emissions reductions opportunities at our natural gas assets, leveraging our footprint for additional assets and building a clean energy economy – we are also looking ahead at future innovations and technologies. Williams’ New Energy Ventures, a business development group focused on commercializing innovative technologies, markets and business models, collaborates across Williams to evaluate and implement projects to grow our clean energy business.

We use the following guiding principles to prioritize our areas of focus and investment:

Achieve carbon reductions for ourselves, our customers and partners – To achieve our low-carbon aspirations, we are collaborating with our current customers and new partners to reduce emissions and build a new sustainable business for the low-carbon future.

Create economic value with actionable investments – Solar installations adjacent to our existing operations reduce emissions and deliver economic benefits. We will expand these opportunities while looking to invest in future clean energy projects and carbon abatement instruments not yet technologically or economically feasible today. As we see technology and market mechanisms mature, we will expand our investments to grow our economic value.

Target opportunities where our midstream competencies and infrastructure provide strong competitive advantages – As a premier energy infrastructure company, we have experience building, operating and maintaining major infrastructure to move, store and deliver energy on demand. We will use our natural gas-focused strategy, our infrastructure capabilities, and technical and operational competencies to accelerate the clean energy future by pursuing new low-carbon opportunities.

Provide scalable options for the future – To match the size of the challenge and opportunity our clean energy future presents, we must focus on a wide range of scalable opportunities to create options for our larger ambition for the future.

PROJECTS CREATING NEAR-TERM VALUE

We are delivering projects to create near-term value and demonstrate our commitment to a clean energy future. 

NextGen Gas – We are working with our customers and technology partners to offer lower-carbon products, including end-to-end certified low emissions gas, known as NextGen Gas. NextGen Gas certifies that natural gas was produced and transported with low emissions across the value chain, increasing trust and transparency regarding end-to-end carbon intensity for our customers and downstream markets. Carbon-offset natural gas is a bundled product of natural gas with an obligation to retire voluntary carbon offsets on behalf of customers. These products provide scalable and repeatable options to lower the emissions footprint of natural gas from the wellhead to end-user.

Power Innovation – Williams is delivering turnkey power generation solutions for data centers across our footprint. Utilizing our vast pipeline infrastructure, gas supply and management expertise, and partnerships with New Energy Ventures, Williams provides speed to market for clean, affordable and reliable power generation.

Energy Efficiency – Our business units are reducing methane emissions with new monitoring technologies, enhanced leak detection and repair, work practice improvements and equipment upgrades on a site-specific basis. We are planning, developing and executing projects to update and modernize our gas networks through initiatives ranging from large horsepower replacements to valve-actuator efficiency improvements.

Solar + Storage – Our Solar + Storage program creates an opportunity to offset current electricity usage at existing facilities with renewable energy by building photovoltaic solar and battery systems behind the meter. In addition, we are utilizing land within our existing land portfolio to build large scale Solar + Storage facilities for third-party energy demand.

FUTURE INNOVATION

CCUS – Our Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) Development program provides opportunity for natural gas to play an important role in the clean energy future. We can use our core competencies of project execution and safe operations to develop the significant infrastructure required to capture, transport and sequester CO₂. To participate in the build-out of a CO₂ economy, we are exploring: 

Capturing CO₂ at existing Williams gathering and processing assets, compressor stations and customer facilities

Sequestration partnerships to ensure captured CO₂ will be sequestered permanently

Building, owning and operating greenfield CO₂ infrastructure

Hydrogen – We are experts at treating, processing, storing and transporting gas, and this experience paired with our asset base provides opportunity to play a role in developing a new market with significant growth potential and to provide scale for the hydrogen economy. We are actively working on projects such as: 

Developing hydrogen pipelines

Blending hydrogen into our existing transmission lines

Production of clean hydrogen from electrolysis with renewable power and from NextGen Gas with CCUS

Consuming hydrogen as fuel to reduce Scope 1 emissions

Producing synthetic natural gas from clean hydrogen combined with captured CO₂

Clean Energy Hubs – Our clean energy hub exploration includes developing partnerships to create economies of scale and meaningful emissions reductions. Many of these emerging opportunities have significant overlap and synergies with each other and our core natural gas business.

Projects include potential CCUS hubs with multiple partners working together to gather CO₂ emissions at scale. Due to the immense capital investment required and the complex nature of carbon capture project execution, CCUS hubs are the primary approach to achieve economies of scale and meaningful emissions reductions. 