Coal-fired plants receive extensions to comply with EPA rule
by September 19, 2017 9:46 am 213 views
Coal-fired plants in the United States installed environmental controls just before compliance deadlines, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The environmental controls include mercury control equipment that uses activated carbon injection systems.
“The nature and timing of control additions indicate a strategy to maintain the availability of affected coal-fired generators by requesting extensions to compliance deadlines and investing in flexible, low-cost environmental control technology,” according to the EIA.
In February 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), requiring all coal- and oil-fired plants that sell electricity and have a capacity greater than 25 megawatts to comply with emissions restrictions for toxic air pollutants related to fuel combustion, including mercury, arsenic and heavy metals. Initially, the compliance deadline was April 16, 2015, and 76% of all coal-fired plants were required to comply with the EPA rule.
“Between January 2015 and April 2016, about 87 (gigawatts) of coal-fired plants installed pollution-control equipment, and nearly 20 (gigawatts) of coal capacity retired,” according to the EIA. A total of 142 gigawatts of coal plants received a one-year extension allowing them to operate until April 2016 while preparing to comply with the rule, according to analysis by MJ Bradley & Associates.
Five coal-fired plants, with a combined capacity of 2.3 gigawatts, received another one-year extension to April 2017, according to the EIA. “Since then, two of the five plants have retired, one converted to natural gas and one installed MATS-compliant controls,” according to the EIA. “The remaining plant, Oklahoma’s Grand River Energy Center, was given another energy extension for reliability issues in April.”
Activated carbon injection was the most common environmental control technology that was installed to comply with the EPA rule. Construction time to install the technology is between 12 and 18 months and costs about $11 per kilowatt.