EPA’S FINAL RULES TRIGGER MASSIVE POWER INDUSTRY OVERHAUL
Kim Hughes, PE, Managing Consultant — Dallas, TX Wes Younger, Managing Consultant —Bakerfield, CA Chris Weber, Managing Consultant — Orlando, FL Jeff Adkins, PE, Principal Consultant — Sacramento, CA
Janet Scheier, Managing Consultant — Kansas City, KS Josh Haar, Managing Consultant —Portland, OR Latha Kambham, Principal Consultant & OM— Dallas, TX
GHG Requirements for New and Existing Fossil-fired Electric Generating Units and Combustion Turbines The finalization of the new rules includes the repeal of the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule. EPA is withdrawing the proposed revisions to New Source Review (NSR) regulations that were included in the ACE Rule proposal. The ACE rule focused on GHG emission reductions through heat rate improvement requirements and the rejection of the requirement to incorporate carbon capture sequestration/ storage (CCS) and natural gas co-firing for certain categories of fossil fuel fired electric generating units. The final rule also removed the proposed requirement for affected sources to utilize low GHG hydrogen as a fuel source. In the new rules, CCS is a requirement for a certain subcategory of EGUs. This technology has been demonstrated at certain capacities at sites in North America, including Canada, Texas, Alabama, North Dakota, and Louisiana. For captured CO2, potential sequestration formations considered are deep saline formations, unmineable coal seams, and oil and gas reservoirs, with the use of pipelines that would run from the source to the sequestration site.
On April 25, 2024 EPA finalized a series of final rules impacting the power sector, which were published in the Federal Register on May 9, 2024 (effective date of July 8, 2024). EPA is statutorily required every 8 years to review and if appropriate, revise the New Source Performance Standards (NSPS), as well as water and solid waste standards. Releases associated with air, water, land and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to the power sector are addressed in the rules. These rules not only have major impacts within the commercial power sector; but also many new industrial projects and data centers, which may now be forced to plan to self-generate their power due to grid constraints and reliability. Recent growth in power demand has been unprecedented and is rapidly exposing shortfalls in generation capacity and especially distribution capacity that utilities are not able to address quickly. Therefore, many industries that were never interested in power generation are now forced to start acting as their own utility, and some of these rules impact those plans as well.
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