A major new study being developed by the Energy Department could help bolster arguments by critics opposing aggressive emission standards being developed by the Environmental Protection Agency because of the high hurdles facing renewable energy and energy efficiency.
The highly anticipated study — known as the Quadrennial Energy Review — will show that renewables and energy-efficiency programs face big barriers without major changes to the electric grid, the Energy Department’s director of the office of policy, Melanie Kenderdine, said Thursday.
That could limit states’ ability to develop more solar, wind and other resources along with efficiency, affecting how they comply with the EPA’s proposed emissions cuts.
Government modeling of the transmission system shows that the nation’s grid systems in the East and West are so different in how they allow electricity to flow that it “is creating a situation where it is more difficult for us to take full advantage of a lot of the technologies that we have, and can’t deploy because of those…differences,” she said.
“Technologies like distributed generation, valuing efficiency, etc…are more difficult to maximize their value when you have those kinds of disconnects between jurisdictions and the modeling of how electrons flow.”
“So, there is a fair amount of discussion in the [review] in that regard. We are in no way, shape or form recommending that we change boundaries [between the regions] but we do have to do an enormous amount of work in coordination, in working together, in order to fully maximize and value all these new technologies that we have and are developing.”
Although she could not discuss the report’s recommendations, the EPA’s rule that states rely on wind and solar energy and efficiency to cut their greenhouse gas emissions could be undermined by the report showing barriers for those technologies.
The review could bolster critics’ arguments that the EPA did not take into consideration the infrastructure changes needed to meet the targets beginning in 2020.
Officials in the electric transmission industry say that they had wished the Energy Department’s review had been issued sooner because of its focus on energy transmission and distribution infrastructure. The officials say the report could assist them in making the case that the EPA did not effectively weigh infrastructure needs in developing the standards.
Others say the EPA ignored the necessary upgrades to natural gas pipelines, in addition to upgrades to the electricity grid that would be needed to meet the rules’ targets.
The EPA rules are meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the nation’s existing fleet of power plants. Many scientists blame the greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels for manmade climate change. But instead of the regulations applying to power plants alone, compliance falls on the states.
The EPA has outlined four ways states can meet the requirements, using a mix of renewable energy, energy efficiency, improvements at coal plants and running natural gas plants at higher rates.
But Kenderdine’s comments reveal a challenge for using two of the four options. If the amount of renewables that a state can use to reach its EPA goal is proved to be unachievable, for example, a case can be made to reduce the target. That has been an issue raised by states to ease the targets, especially when they disagree with EPA on the amount of renewable energy they have available to reach the emission reductions.
