DoE assessment of impact of EPA toxic emissions standards for power plants

The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA)Mercury and Air Toxics Standard (MATS) for power plants is scheduled to be issued by Dec 16 2011.   Estimates of the impact range from 10 GW to 35 or even 60 GW of the US's 340 GW of coal-fired power capacity that could be forced to shut down and replaced with alternatives.

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) released its 2011 Long Term Reliability Assessment which warns that "existing and proposed environmental regulations in the U.S. may significantly affect bulk power system reliability depending on the scope and timing of the rule implementation and the mechanisms in place to preserve reliability."

The U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) has released a new report examining the potential impact the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) and the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) standards could have on the reliability of the electric power grid. The DoE modeled a conservative scenario for 2015 that was deliberately constructed to be more stringent than the new EPA rules for the installation of pollution controls at older plants and construction of new generation capacity.  DoE’s assessment concludes that the overall resources would be adequate with only the potential need for a small amount of additional new generation capacity to maintain regional planning targets.