Electric grid operators warn U.S. Supreme Court that new EPA rules will cause widespread blackouts

Organizations that manage, coordinate and monitor electricity service for 156 million Americans across 30 states are warning that the Biden-Harris administration’s power plant rule will be catastrophic for the nation’s grid. Four regional trade organizations (RTO), as they’re called, recently filed an amicus brief, also known as a friend of the court brief, in support of a multi-state lawsuit against the EPA over the rule.

The EPA released the rules in April. They require coal-fired power plants that will be operating past 2039 to begin implementing carbon-capture technologies in just eight years. New gas-fired power plants will also need to add the technologies, with those operating 40% of their annual capacity or more to add carbon capture starting in 2032. 

Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling, co-founder and researchers with Always On Energy Research, performed an analysis on behalf of the North Dakota Transmission Authority on the impacts the rules would have on the Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator (MISO), an RTO that covers a swath of the center of the U.S. 

The researchers say they found a number of problems. The EPA grossly overestimated the ability of intermittent wind and solar to deliver reliable electricity during peak demand periods, according to the analysis, and it also found the agency didn’t perform any reliability analysis on the rules. The result would be blackouts lasting days in some cases. 

The RTOs’ amicus brief points out these same problems. It argues that the EPA’s timeline is too short. The requirements for compliance assume feasibility of carbon capture technology that has not been “adequately demonstrated,” the RTOs explain, and the rules would result in vast retirements of coal-fired power plants while preventing investments in baseload generators, such as natural gas-fired power plants, to replace the lost capacity. The RTOs also noted that the EPA performed no reliability operational assessments. Baseload generation refers to the minimum level of constant power supply that a utility or power grid must produce to meet the continuous and consistent demand for electricity. 

“It would be absolutely devastating for the grid,” Rolling told Just the News.

Rolling and Orr reached out to several regulatory attorneys, and none of them were aware of another situation in which RTOs filed an amicus brief asking the court to remand regulations back to the agency. The fact the RTOs intervened in the case suggests that they are especially concerned about the rules.

Supporters of the rules, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), argue the rules are necessary to achieve net-zero by 2050. The target is a key goal for anti-fossil fuel advocates, because they say it would limit global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The criticisms the EPA’s rules have received suggest the goal isn’t achievable without serious threats to the reliability of the nation’s grid. Net zero means cutting carbon emissions to a small amount of residual emissions that can be absorbed and durably stored by nature and other carbon dioxide removal measures, leaving zero in the atmosphere.

Rolling said that many grid engineers and planners know that eliminating thermal units — coal- and gas-fired power plants — on the time scale that achieving net zero by 2050 would result in frequent and lasting blackouts. He said, however, there’s a reluctance to be too vocal about it. The industries that contribute to the U.S. electricity supply are interconnected, and there’s pressure to maintain harmony and cooperation, to not rock the boat so to speak, which is a feature of many industries and organizations.

“So they don't say things out in the open, that maybe they should,” Rolling said.

The 2019 blackouts in California, the deadly Texas blackouts in the 2021 Winter Storm Uri, and the Christmas 2022 blackouts in the Southeast, Rolling said, should have been a wakeup call for the country that there are growing risks to our electricity grid. So far, they haven’t deterred the net-zero by 2050 advocates from their agenda.

Rolling said that RTOs and utilities have traditionally been policy takers, as opposed to policy makers. This is leaving a lot of the policymaking up to people who are not as knowledgeable or concerned about the impacts policies can have on the nation’s electricity supply. 

“At a certain point, you can't be policy takers. You have to get in the mix of policy. These are the people that know this best. They know their regions the best. They know what their system needs to maintain reliability, and the EPA should listen to them,” Rolling said. 

So far, the EPA doesn’t appear to be willing to do that. In its response to the arguments of the plaintiffs, the EPA defended its rule and its authority to enact it. The agency defended carbon capture, pointing to projects the agency claims were successful, and insisted the technology is financially viable. Rolling said he’s talked to engineers that tell him the technology is still in its infancy, but the EPA is trying to force it into primetime. 

“We're jumping off a cliff and we're hoping to create the parachute while we're in the air,” Rolling said.