Only small fraction of existing gas power would be covered by EPA rule, green group’s analysis finds

Just a small fraction of power-producing turbines at existing gas-power plants would be covered by a proposed climate rule from the Biden administration, according to an analysis from an environmental advocacy group. 

The analysis projects 5.2 percent of these turbines — representing 22 percent of the nation’s gas power capacity — would be covered by the rule when it takes effect in 2035.

The analysis was first shared with The Hill.

The group, Evergreen, said this shows the proposal would not be as burdensome to comply with as some industry players say — and that it needs to be strengthened. 

“Only 5.2 percent of existing gas units is very minor and insignificant,” said Charles Harper, the group’s power sector senior policy lead.

“It’s not going to have the massive impact on the industry that the Edison Electric Institute and others are claiming … and it in fact shows pretty starkly that the rule … needs to be strengthened substantially,” Harper said.

These percentages don’t necessarily reflect the amount of planet-warming emissions that would be covered by the rule. Not every turbine is equal in size and power, and some larger turbines that are more likely to be covered under the rule also produce more emissions. 

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed the rule, which would impose new climate-related restrictions on power plants, earlier this year.

The rule applies to existing coal plants, new gas plants and some existing gas plants. 

Specifically, it covers existing gas plants with a power capacity of at least 300 megawatts that run at least half the time. 

Gas plants covered under the rule would have to either install technology to capture their carbon emissions or fire carbon-free hydrogen energy alongside natural gas to limit their impacts on the planet.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), another environmental group, recently found that 36 percent of emissions from plants that are required to report their emissions to the EPA under the rule would be covered.

Amanda Levin, director of policy analysis at the NRDC’s science office, said plants that are small or that run infrequently don’t have to report their emissions, so that figure may be an overcount of the share of total existing gas emissions the rule would cover.

“What we can see is that as EPA has proposed, this standard only covers a subset of these plants,” Levin said. 

Asked to respond to the findings, an EPA spokesperson provided a written statement noting the rule is “focused around the largest sources of emissions in the power sector, and aims to impose robust emission standards based on available technologies.”

The spokesperson also noted there are about 120 existing power plants that meet the criteria in the rule, and natural gas plants have historically represented about a third of the sector’s carbon dioxide emissions. 

Harper said that to find Evergreen’s new projections, he used data from S&P Global that projects what gas plants will be doing in 2035. He then applied the EPA’s specifications for which plants would be covered under the rule to that projection to determine which ones it would apply to.

“We don’t expect plants to all exactly comply with the projections, but this is the best data that we do have available today,” he said.

Reached for comment, The Edison Electric Institute, a major electric lobbying group, referred The Hill to a letter it sent to the EPA that argued the rule is overly burdensome.

In particular, the letter said it would be “costly” and “capital intensive” to implement the technologies the rule calls for and described these technologies as “not deployable, available, or affordable across the entirety of the industry.”

“EPA’s rulemaking record simultaneously downplays the various infrastructure challenges to deploying these technologies, while overplaying the current state of deployment and demonstration of each technology,” the group said in an official comment last month. 

At the time, the EPA defended its proposal as being based on “proven and cost-effective control technologies that can be applied directly to power plants.”

— Updated Sept. 22 at 10:29 a.m.