PJM and the PSC of Washington, D.C., have asked FERC to
order Mirant Corp. to restart a chronically polluting
coal-fired plant in Virginia that the company shut down in
late August. The two petitioners say the lost generation could
create an “emergency” that threatens the security of the
capital’s energy supply and, consequently, national security
as well. FERC should decline to intervene.
Just three weeks after the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission (FERC) was given the power to oversee promulgation
and enforcement of mandatory reliability rules for U.S.
transmission grids, the commission’s wisdom was put to the
test. The salient question in the case involving Mirant Corp’s
500-MW Potomac River power plant in Alexandria, Va., is
whether a potential threat to the energy security of the
nation’s capital is sufficient to permit a plant to operate in
noncompliance with federal air-quality standards. I say that
FERC should not dignify the question by answering it, because
doing so would overstep the commission’s authority and set a
poor precedent.
The background of the case reveals how mixing business,
politics, and regulation can create a crisis. The Potomac
River plant, with five 1940s-vintage coal-fired units, has
long had an exceptionally poor environmental record marked by
routinely high localized emissions of SO2 and particulates.
During the 2003 ozone season, the plant’s NOx emissions were
twice the permitted level. Citizens’ groups have called for
Potomac River’s closure for over four years.
Negotiations between Mirant and the Virginia Department of
Environmental Quality (DEQ) resulted in a consent order signed
in September 2004. In it, Mirant agreed to conduct an
air-quality study to determine whether key pollutants exceeded
health-based standards and to reduce their emissions levels if
that was the case. The results of the study, which was
submitted to the DEQ on August 19, were not unexpected:
“PM2.5, PM10 and SO2 maximum short-term impacts exceed the
respective AQQS [ambient air quality standards] by between
five and eighteen times. Areas of noncompliance are widespread
and severe...on average, 24-hour impacts of SO2...equal three
times the AAQS.”
The DEQ responded the same day by instructing Mirant to
address the situation immediately and to inform the DEQ of
steps it is taking by 2 p.m. on August 24. The company also
responded immediately—by shutting down the plant on the 24th.
“We did the right thing and we’d do it again,” said Marce
Fuller, Mirant’s president and CEO. “Mirant has a
responsibility to deliver power to support the reliability of
the electric grid, but it must also respect public health
concerns. We did what any responsible company would do. Now
we’re looking to the appropriate federal authorities to tell
us to either keep the plant shut down or return it to
operation.”
Potomac River’s shutdown raised immediate concerns at three
entities: PJM, which oversees the grid in a broad region that
includes metropolitan Washington; Pepco, which buys most of
the plant’s output and distributes electricity in the nation’s
capital; and the District of Columbia Public Service
Commission (PSC).
In an “emergency petition” submitted to FERC on August 25,
the PSC said that shutdown of the Mirant plant could have “a
drastic and potentially immediate effect” on the reliability
of the grid in the Washington area and could expose “agencies
of the federal government and critical federal infrastructure
. . . to curtailments of electric service, load shedding and,
potentially, blackouts.”
The PSC went on to tell FERC that “immediate action by the
Secretary of Energy and [FERC] is needed to avoid the
potentially dangerous and security-threatening interruption of
electric service to the District of Columbia that may occur”
if the Mirant plant stays off-line.
PJM told FERC in its comments that “it is apparent that the
loss of all units at the Potomac River plant for an extended
period, coupled with the potential for loss of critical
transmission lines, creates a significantly increased risk of
losing a large block of load in the Washington area. PJM then
proposed to FERC that Mirant be allowed and required to keep
individual units at the plant “operating periodically and/or
at a minimal output level to ensure that, if called on in an
emergency, the plant would not require a lengthy startup
[from] a ‘cold state.’”
Meanwhile, the Virginia DEQ reminded FERC that the Potomac
River plant was shut down for continued and serious violations
of air-quality standards, and questioned whether the
commission has the authority under the Federal Power Act to
order the plant restarted except in the event of an emergency.
Pepco and the PSC admitted in their petition that there was no
immediate emergency, only that the potential for one existed.
A FERC spokesman said the commissioners are “deliberating,”
and declined to predict how soon the commission might act on
the request for FERC intervention. He added that such an
intervention—ordering a plant to operate in violation of
environmental laws—would be unprecedented. I believe that a
decision by FERC to allow Potomac River to restart would break
two laws—the Federal Power Act and the Clean Air Act—and set a
very bad precedent just as the commission is about to begin
policing U.S. transmission reliability. To FERC, I say: Pick
the fights you can win.
At press time, the last words must go to Mirant, which told
FERC in a September 1 filing that the plant remains fully
staffed and “in a state of operational readiness,” and that
the company “stands ready to continue discussions” to return
the plant to operation as soon as possible.
That kind of attitude won’t get you invited to the next
neighborhood block party.
Dr. Robert Peltier, PE Editor-in-Chief
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