June 8, 2015 | By Jaclyn Brandt

The Energy Information Association (EIA) has analyzed the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean Power Plan (CPP) and found that the plan will help renewables become an important part of the future of energy -- including when relating to market conditions and policy assumptions.

Proposed U.S. electric capacity additions and retirements in two cases, 2014-2040. Click on image to enlarge. Credit: EIA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The key difference across the various scenarios analyzed involves the timing and the extent that wind and solar electric generating capacity additions occur," EIA said in a statement, "as well as retirements of some generation capacity, mainly coal-fired units and relatively inefficient power plants that use natural gas or oil-fired boilers to run steam turbines."

In all of the cases that EIA looked at, natural gas-fired generation increased in 2020 as an initial compliance strategy. However, additions of renewable generation, like wind and solar, and the preference for additions of renewable capacity as a compliance option under CPP, "reflects the treatment renewables receive in EPA's intensity-standard formula, as they both reduce CO2 emissions and count as affected sources whose generation is added to generation from existing sources."

 

EIA found a total of 283 gigawatts (GW) added in renewable electricity generation capacity in the CPP reference case they studied through 2040. However, in EIA's Annual Energy Outlook 2015 (AEO2015), a reference that does not include CPP in their figures, they found only 109 GW added.

Although much of the solar capacity added through 2040 would be caused by the costs becoming more competitive, most of the wind capacity will be added by 2025.

Even without the CPP being implemented, EIA found that in the CPP reference case, 40 GW of coal-fired capacity and 46 GW of existing natural gas/oil-fired capacity will be retiring through 2040. According to EIA, "cases that implement the proposed Clean Power Plan rule accelerate and amplify these retirements, especially for coal."

"The timing of the coal retirements is heavily influenced by implementation of environmental rules that may require power plant operators to either incur costs to retrofit power plants or receive less revenue because of lower levels of operation," EIA said in a statement.

For more:
- download the AEO2015

http://www.fierceenergy.com/story/cpp-may-speed-renewable-integration-coal-retirement/2015-06-08