As Massachusetts regulators map out the state’s role in reducing global warming, environmental advocates and electricity generators both urged consideration for how new rules could affect power plant emissions outside state borders.
Spurred by a high court case demanding compliance with a greenhouse-gas-reduction law and an executive order from Gov. Charlie Baker, the Department of Environmental Protection has proposed a set of regulations on power plants, pipelines and the transportation sector that it estimates could reduce emissions by 7.2 percent.
One method the DEP has proposed would be to set a hard cap on Massachusetts power plant emissions in 2018 that declines year-over-year by 2.5 percent, according to New England Power Generators Association President Dan Dolan.
“What they’re going to do is limit the amount you can emit; therefore the amount that you can run. But the electricity demand is still going to be there, and so while the Massachusetts plants will have their run-times capped, it is then going to force that demand to be met by outside power plants – so plants in Rhode Island and Connecticut that wouldn’t be running otherwise, aren’t the most efficient and are higher emitting than the resources in place,” Dolan told the News Service. He said, “Right now there’s no commercially available technology to limit the carbon emissions other than running less.”
Grady McGonagill, of Elders Climate Action, expressed a similar concern about importing electricity from high-emitting out-of-state plants and he proposed imposing emissions limits on electricity consumed in Massachusetts rather than just the power generated in-state.
Massachusetts participates in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap-and-trade system that allows producers to exceed caps for a price.
