Marathon Pundit: EPA's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule could lead to rolling outages

Friday, September 02, 2011

EPA's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule could lead to rolling outages

Are you ready for rotating power outages? That could happen in Texas if the EPA's Cross-State rule is put into place. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) already named it as one of his top-ten job destroying regulations being considered by the Obama White House.

From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, operator of the state's power grid, said in a report today that a new federal environmental regulation would reduce generating capacity and put the grid "at increasing risk of emergency events," including rotating power outages.

The Jan. 1 implementation date for the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, designed to curb air pollution from power plants, leaves ERCOT with "an extremely truncated period" in which to assess the impact of the rule and "no realistic opportunity to take steps that could even partially offset the substantial losses of available operating capacity," it said.

The report outlined three scenarios, with even the "best-case scenario" expected to result in the loss of an estimated 1,200 to 1,400 megawatts of generating capacity during peak consumption periods, ERCOT said.

"Had this incremental reduction been in place in 2011, ERCOT would have experienced rotating outages during days in August," the report said.