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EPSA President "Pulls Back The Curtain" On Behind The Meter Generation At EPA Hearing On Proposal To Exempt Demand Response From Clean Air Act Regulations
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Electric Power Supply Association President and CEO John E. Shelk today testified at a public hearing convened by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to consider public comments on EPA's controversial proposal to exempt certain forms of Demand Response operating "behind the meter" power generation from Clean Air Act rules applicable to other power generators.
In his testimony, Shelk stressed that EPSA's opposition focuses on that part of the overall proposal impacting Demand Response programs in organized wholesale power markets. Excerpts from the testimony follow:
"This is a very, very significant proceeding for three reasons. The first two are obvious: one, exempting some in the power business from requirements imposed by this Agency as to something as serious as hazardous air pollutants imposed on all others in the same business speaks for itself, but secondly must be combined with the recent World Health Organization report that came out after the Federal Register notice of this proposal in which the WHO elevated diesel exhaust to a known carcinogen."
"Less obvious, is how exempting some market participants would continuously and corrosively interact with how regional power markets operate to permanently displace actual generation from power plants dramatically cleaner than back up diesel generators."
“This proposal would allow a few firms to concoct and connect a network of exempt diesel generators that will become a series of virtual power plants. Even worse, they and their customers get paid by regular ratepayers under the guise of reducing demand that is in fact only shifted 'behind the meter' and under the environmental radar.”
"In sum, this proposal is asking average ratepayers to pay more money, to a relative few, for those so subsidized to pollute more, all at the expense of average ratepayers' health and their pocketbooks. 'DR' is supposed to stand for Demand Response yet this proposal, combined with other federal agency policies, makes the 'D' stand for diesel while 'R' becomes renaissance. This isn't right, it isn't good public policy, and the proposal to exempt behind the meter generation operating as demand response from clean air rules should be rejected."
CONTACT: JOHN SHELK
(202) 349-0154or 703-472-8660
EPSA is the national trade association representing competitive power suppliers, including generators and marketers. These suppliers, who account for nearly 40 percent of the installed generating capacity in the United States, provide reliable and competitively priced electricity from environmentally responsible facilities serving global power markets. EPSA seeks to bring the benefits of competition to all power customers.