ADS notes absence of smart grid in EPA carbon draft

Smart Grid Today
6/4/14

While the Assn for Demand Response & Smart Grid (ADS) – a Washington, DC-based industry group – lauded the release Monday of EPA's Clean Power Plant proposal, which for the first time would mandate cuts in CO2 pollution from existing power plants nationwide, it balked at the absence of peak-load management and smart grid. The group believes those services and technologies have key roles to play in the CO2-reduction equation.

The draft regulations "show extreme flexibility in setting targets," said ADS Executive Director Dan Delurey in prepared remarks, "and more importantly, they provide states with substantial flexibility in how they put together plans to meet those targets. We are surprised, however, to see that demand-side efficiency is described in the regulations as only being 'end-use' efficiency.

"States, utilities and technology companies know that traditional end-use efficiency is not the only way to reduce usage and thus emissions," Delurey said. "With the use of demand response and smart grid technologies and practices, it is possible to manage peak load and for efficiency to be dynamic and dispatchable on a 24/7 basis.

"It can, thus, play a greater role in optimizing our electricity system and reducing emissions. It may even be possible to consider using demand response as a dynamic emissions reduction tool," he added.

"The regulations do mention transmission upgrades as an option that states can consider," Delurey noted, "but it is the distribution system where greater savings are possible and where states have jurisdiction to effect change."

"The demand response and smart grid community looks forward to commenting on the draft regulations and helping states understand the importance of considering DR and smart grid as part of Building Block 4 of the draft regulations," said Delurey.

"Climate change, fueled by carbon pollution, supercharges risks to our health, our economy, and our way of life," said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in prepared remarks released Monday. "EPA is delivering on a vital piece of President Obama's Climate Action Plan by proposing a Clean Power Plan that will cut harmful carbon pollution from our largest source – power plants," she added.

Power plants account for roughly 1/3 of all domestic greenhouse gas (GGH) emissions, EPA said, and while there are limits in place for the level of arsenic, mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particle pollution that power plants can emit, there are currently no national limits on carbon pollution.

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